Lost Boys Don't Cry
by cranapplepye
Summary: After a rescue mission gone wrong, Scott and Stiles find themselves trapped in a labyrinth filled with deadly mysteries. Their only hope of making it back home is to cooperate with the very people who landed them there, but their unscrupulous captors have their own plans. Werewolf endurance and a knack for solving puzzles make the boys valuable, but all may not be as it seems...
1. Prologue

**A/N: This story was written for the Sciles Big Bang and I had the privilege of working with two incredibly awesome artists! I want to give a huge thank you to pinshekonsha and thepaintblot for their time and their amazing work. You can find links to their tumblr accounts and the art for the story embedded into the AO3 version, if you want to check that out.** **Credit for the story's cover image goes to pinshekonsha (the seal) and thepaintblot (Stiles and Scott).**

 **This is set after Season 4, and is more or less canon-compliant up to that point. As a warning, there are some pretty intense horror elements later on in this story, which is why it's rated M. There will be a lot of whump and peril in this fic.**

 **I worked really hard on this story, and I hope you enjoy it. :)**

* * *

 _ **Prologue**_

* * *

Stiles awoke in darkness. He was cold. Wet clothes clung to his body. His head throbbed unmercifully and there was a humming in his ears like someone nearby was constantly running their finger along the rim of a glass. Unless he was trapped in a dark room with a sadistic busboy or a tone deaf armonica player, there was probably something wrong with his ear drums. Groaning softly, Stiles rolled onto his side and started to push himself upright. His hands brushed something warm and he froze, dread tightening his shoulders and cutting through the disoriented jumble of his foggy mind with the clear realization that he was not alone.

"Hello?" he croaked, and was surprised at both the unexpected hoarseness of his own voice, and the fact that he could barely hear himself. Everything was muted, like he was deep underwater. _Where was he?_

Receiving no response but the continued ringing in his throbbing ears, Stiles hesitantly ran his hand over the form of the body beside him, trying to figure out _who_ or _what_ it was.

 _Don't be dead, don't be dead... unless you're some scary creature that might want to eat me, then in that case, please be dead, please be dead._

The body was human, or at least, human-shaped. His fingers glided over what felt like a jean clad leg, then snagged on something sharp. He jerked his hand back instinctually before returning to his exploration more cautiously. He couldn't tell what the sharp object was, but it wasn't the only one, He found a number of them protruding from the denim material. Light, experimental prodding didn't budge them. His fingers came away wet with something thicker and stickier than water. Blood. He couldn't see it, but he knew the feeling; the smell. His stomach tightened against the memories of loving that sensation. They weren't his, but they would always feel that way.

He continued on, feeling his way up the leg, to the person's waist and ... okay, the person was a guy. Yup, definitely male. _Moving right along..._

He skimmed his way across an arm, a sleeve, the fabric was as wet as that of his own. Moving ever higher, his questing fingers finally found the other person's head in the darkness. Thick, curly hair. Smooth features. A slightly crooked jaw.

It wasn't easy to guess what someone looked like by feel, Stiles didn't know how blind people did it, but in this one instance, no guesswork was required. He knew almost immediately who was beside him, and a new kind of fear filled him as his fingers fluttered over the face he knew as well as his own. Better, some days.

"Scott? Scott!"

Still no response from the still figure next to him. Shivering, Stiles' fingers prodded about urgently, trying to find a pulse. He finally settled for pressing his hand over Scott's nose and mouth instead, relieved when he felt the steady inhale and exhale of air against his palm.

Stiles had unconsciously been waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but no matter how much he blinked, it remained utter and complete. The absolute lack of visual information was strangely smothering, making him feel both claustrophobic and unsettled. He tried to rise to his feet and the world spun violently around him. Losing all sense of which way was up, Stiles dropped quickly back to his hands and knees, clutching the ground as if desperately trying not to fall off it. Nausea washed over him and his stomach heaved. He tasted bile, his head throbbing as he threw up food he couldn't see from a meal he didn't remember.

Moaning softly, he held onto the surface under him until stability slowly returned, illusory lights popping and sparking randomly before his eyes. _Crap,_ his head hurt and his ears felt like they were on fire from the inside. Cautiously freeing one hand from its death grip on the floor, Stiles ran his hand through his hair. He winced sharply when he reached the back of his head and his fingers came away sticky with blood again, this time his own.

He sat back his knees, moving slowly so as not to set the world to spinning again. He concentrated on breathing as he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. He was disoriented and it was unusually hard to think or to hold onto a train of thought for more than a few moments.

He remembered jumbled bits and flashes; the pieces falling into place only reluctantly, like a badly crafted jigsaw puzzle that didn't quite fit together.

 _They were in the woods. Lydia's fingers were white around the police radio he pressed into her hands. Derek was bleeding black blood. There was a little girl with dark hair and frightened eyes ... Megan. Her name was Megan. She'd been kidnapped, they had been looking for her. Her and the others. All the ones who were taken. Why had they been taken? Where had they been taken?_

Stiles moaned again, rubbing his face as if that might stimulate some clarity. His mind stuck and whirled around the questions he couldn't answer until he finally forced it away.

He shivered. He was cold. Wet. _Why was he wet?_ That one, at least, he could answer. It was raining. Or... it _had_ been raining. He could hear no sound of rain or thunder in here now, wherever _here_ was.

 _The woods, he'd been in the woods. It was raining. His father's hair was slicked down to his scalp, tan uniform clinging to his body. The gun in his hand was steady, his eyes blazing with intensity as rain sheeted down around him. "You don't want to do this," he warned._

 _There was a man with salt and pepper hair and a tanned, weathered face. A discolored scar that looked like a spider web crawled up his neck and the lower part of his jaw. He had a gun, too. Stiles felt the muzzle against his head, a hard, steady pressure digging in just above his ear._

Some part of Stiles' mind caught on that memory with panic, clamoring at him that his head hurt because he'd been shot. He shoved the nauseating thought back with effort. _That was stupid. If he'd been shot in the head he'd be dead. No, he must have hit his head when he fell ..._

More memories washed over him then, sickeningly fast and disordered. _The rain cutting off abruptly. A wet, twisting curtain of green. A dark cave. Scott, dripping water onto the rocks. Shouting. Thunderous noise. An unearthly green glow. A blinding light. An explosion. Scott, slamming into him, throwing him backwards, covering him as they fell..._

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep his heart and lungs from speeding up and increasing the uneasy nausea he was starting to get under control. The fragments of memory were jagged and broken, melting away into confusion when he tried to grab onto them too tightly. He remembered being in a cave with Scott. Remembered an explosion and falling. He definitely remembered falling. _The sensation of seemingly endless weightlessness, like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole._

Turning his head carefully, he looked around again. He could still see nothing but blackness. They must still be in the cave, only ... somewhere deeper, perhaps? Had the explosion he could only vaguely recall have knocked out a wall? Perhaps opened up some old mine shaft or natural sink hole and they were sitting at the bottom of it right now? But then why was it so dark? Shouldn't he see some kind of light from the mouth of the opening above? If they'd fallen too far for him to see the opening, he'd be dead, wouldn't he? Or at least have significantly more broken bones?

Stiles pressed the heel of one palm into his eyes, gritting his teeth against a gnawing headache. He was pretty sure he had a concussion, but no other significant injuries were making themselves known as yet. Maybe it was night time. Maybe the explosion had sealed up the passage after them.

 _Or maybe there was plenty of light and he just couldn't see it. Maybe the blow to his head had done more than concuss him. Maybe he was blind._

Terrified by this ghastly new thought, Stiles waved his hands in front of his face, trying desperately to see any sign of movement. That did no good. He needed something that he knew should cast a light, that was the only way to be sure. _What did he have that could_ ... _phone!_ Scrambling in his pocket, Stiles searched for his cell phone, kicking himself for not having thought of it before. It spoke to how clouded his mind was that calling for help hadn't occurred to him sooner.

The familiar feeling of his phone was comforting as it slid into his hand. He struggled to extricate it from his wet pants, then thumbed it on.

He let out a whoosh of relieved breath when the brilliance of his phone's lock screen made him blink and reflexively look away. Even automatically dimming to its lowest setting, it still seemed very bright after the complete darkness. Swiping the lock screen away, Stiles squinted at the display, frowning when he saw that he had no signal.

He muttered a curse, although if they _were_ in some kind of underground pit or sink hole, it wasn't too surprising that he didn't have any service. He held the phone up over his head, moving it around and craning his neck to see if that helped. It nearly made him fall over when his tenuous sense of equilibrium made the earth shift under him again, but that was about all.

Sighing, Stiles dropped his arm and turned on the phone's flashlight app instead. He supposed that being able to just call for help was too much to hope for with the way their luck ran. Maybe it wouldn't matter, though. They hadn't been in the woods alone. The others would know what had happened. Hopefully, they were getting help and trying to dig them out right now. Hopefully, they were okay and _able_ to do those things.

Shining the light upward, Stiles saw the shadowy shape of some kind of solid obstruction high over their heads. It was just out of the reach of his mobile's little light beam, even on its brightest setting, and he couldn't see detail. The ceiling high overhead seemed disconcertingly uniform and not like the jagged hole or jumble of rocks he'd expected, but maybe it was just a trick of the inadequate lighting. Shining the light around him in a circle, Stiles saw smooth, dark stone walls around them on three sides. The fourth side was open, some kind of passageway or tunnel leading off into darkness.

Stiles blinked, brows drawing down in confusion. He wasn't sure if he could trust was he was seeing, because it didn't make a lot of sense. The tunnel walls were too smooth, the angle where they met the floor too purposeful for this to be some kind of naturally occurring cave. It had to be man-made.

Again, the thought of old, abandoned mining tunnels came to him. He accepted it reluctantly and only on a provisional basis. It was not a satisfactory conclusion, because he'd never heard of any kind of significant mining being done out here. Then again, this was California. Back during the gold rush days, people had probably prospected all over the place. Maybe this tunnel was from back then, boarded up and long forgotten. He felt like he was stretching to make the theory cover the facts, but no other explanation was presently coming to mind.

Turning the light on Scott, Stiles winced as he got his first real look at his friend since he'd woken. Scott was laying sprawled his back on the ground, very much as if he'd just fallen from above and landed there. There was a small halo of debris around them; mostly shards of rock and bits of twisted metal and other things too small and blackened for Stiles to recognize.

Scott was wearing a denim shirt over a black tank top. The black material didn't show stains well in the low lighting, but underneath the glow of his mobile, he could see the fabric glistening with blood. Two deceptively small tears in the fabric across Scott's stomach marked where bullets had entered his body, even though the tan skin beneath had already closed over the wounds. The sharp things Stiles had felt on Scott's leg turned out to be jagged slivers of stone that had embedded themselves in the side of his thigh, his jeans stained crimson around them.

Most disturbing of all was the puddle of blood framing Scott's torso and staining the sides of his jacket. There were clearly wounds back there. Carefully, Stiles rolled his friend over onto his stomach so he could get a better look. His jaw tightened as he took in the damage.

The back of Scott's jacket was slashed and pocked with burns. Two jagged tears marked the exit wounds from where he'd been shot and the denim was liberally stained crimson. The damage to his clothing said that his back had been seriously lacerated. It was already healing up nicely, except for where jagged shards of shrapnel were visible. They stuck out sickeningly, like overgrown porcupine quills. Several of them were still sluggishly oozing blood. The worst of it seemed confined to the back of Scott's left shoulder and his right leg. Most of it looked like slivers of rock, but there were a few twisted, wicked looking pieces of metal driven deep into the base of his thigh and the back of his knee. It was clear that Scott had had his back to the explosion when it happened.

 _The man with the spider web of scars, glaring. Blinding light. A concussive force. Scott, slamming into him. Scott grabbing Stiles' head and tucking it against his chest, covering Stiles protectively with his body..._

Stiles breathed deeply and re-focused himself. Scott would be okay. The injuries looked nasty, but Stiles had seen him heal worse. This shrapnel was going to have to come out though, or his body was just going to try to heal around it. Probably already was. Removing it was going to hurt like hell. It would be better to do it while Scott was still out.

Steeling himself, Stiles leaned forward cautiously. Holding his phone with one hand, he carefully and methodically started working the shrapnel free with his other. With a normal person, Stiles thought you probably should leave penetrating objects in the injury to restrict blood loss, but Scott wasn't normal. Thankfully. Because Stiles wasn't so sure a normal person could have survived this level of trauma.

Some of the fragments were _seriously_ embedded into Scott's flesh and Stiles had to really work at getting them out. He had to grip onto the sharp bits of projectile tightly, sometimes wiggling and twisting them back and forth before they would come free. The sharp edges dug and cut painfully into his fingers. Stiles winced and cursed repeatedly, but he kept going. About halfway through, he had the idea of wrapping his hand in the lower tail of his outer shirt for some added protection and that helped.

By the time he was done, Stiles' fingers were scraped and bleeding and Scott was finally starting to stir.

"Scott?" he asked, wiping his stinging hands on the thighs of his jeans. "You with me, buddy?"

Scott groaned softly by way of answer and it rumbled in his chest like a growl. He was disoriented and confused and his wolf was struggling instinctively to the surface in an effort to protect him, the red of its presence seeping into his eyes. He blinked, trying to make sense of his surroundings and started to push himself up to hands and knees. Almost immediately he gave another, sharper groan and crumpled back to his elbows. Ducking his head, he panted softly, hands fisting against the floor as his wolf retreated under the pain and his eyes bled back to brown.

"Easy! Easy..." Stiles warned, leaning over him in concern and laying a gentle hand on Scott's shoulder. "I just pulled half a mountain out of your back and you got shot, like ... a lot. Give yourself a few more minutes for your wolfy healing to do its thing," he suggested.

Scott nodded tensely, his breath coming in sharp, contained little gasps that gave away how much he was hurting. Stiles kept his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder.

"Where are we?" Scott asked. His voice was both hoarse and cautious, as if he were trying to find a way to speak that didn't aggravate his healing injuries.

" _That_ is an excellent question," Stiles replied. "Working hypothesis is that the explosion blew us into some kind old, abandoned mine shaft and sealed it up behind us." His voice betrayed a hint of his dissatisfaction with that explanation, but he let it stand for the present. "My phone survived, but I'm not getting any signal. We should try yours."

Scott just nodded and Stiles took a moment fishing it out of his back pocket. Unfortunately, Scott's phone had _not_ survived. Either the explosion or the fall had done it in. The screen was cracked from end to end and it wouldn't turn on. Stiles sighed. "Well, that's that then. How you doing?"

"Okay," Scott said as he carefully rolled to his side. He grimaced as he moved, but managed to make it all the way to a sitting position this time. "Better. You okay? You're talking really loud."

"I am?" Stiles tried to modulate his voice lower, although now it sounded to him like he was whispering. "Huh. I think my ears are messed up." He shrugged his head, then wished he hadn't because it set the world to dancing again. "Other than that, a raging concussion, and the general feeling that I was just blown through a stone wall, I'm fab," he said dryly, although the truth was that aside from a generalized aching sensation and the massive throbbing in his head he didn't _really_ feel like he'd been thrown through anything, or fallen any great distance. It all was more than a little puzzling.

Scott was frowning at him, looking worried. "Stiles, your ears." Scott reached over and brushed his fingers against Stiles' left ear, the gentle touch skimming lightly over the other boy's jaw as it drew away. Scott lifted his fingers to show they were now tipped with red. "They're bleeding."

Stiles blinked, focusing on not seeing double images of Scott's hand. "Huh. Yeah, okay, they're definitely messed up then," he said simply. "I can still hear though, everything's just a little ... muffled," he dropped his voice again on the last word when he saw Scott wince slightly in a way that indicated he was talking too loudly again.

"So, it looks like this tunnel goes off that way," he continued, flicking his mobile's glow in the direction where the darkness stretched away from them. "Maybe there's a way out." Holding onto the wall for support, Stiles struggled slowly to his feet. His balance still felt tenuous, but the earth wasn't moving as violently as it had before and he was keeping a lid on the nausea for now. Standing wasn't very fun, but he couldn't stand sitting around any longer. He needed to understand where they were and, more importantly, how to get out.

Scott started to join him, but no sooner had he straightened up than he was dropping back down to the ground again with a cry. He curled his right leg to him, grimacing and digging his fingers into his thigh.

"Scott?" Stiles asked in concern, moving closer.

Scott experimentally flexed and straightened his leg, his breath coming ragged and harsh. "Something's wrong," he grit out. Unfastening his pants, he pushed them down, trying to move his right leg as little as possible.

Stiles crouched down beside him, shining light onto the other boy's leg, trying to see what the problem was. "What's wrong? Where does it hurt?"

"I don't know," Scott responded. "Here," he indicated the back of his right knee and thigh. "I can't..." he flexed it experimentally and hissed. "It hurts like hell when I bend it."

Stiles frowned, prompting Scott to turn a little so he could get a better look at the problem area. The skin was smudged with blood, but he didn't see any open wounds or injuries. "You had some pretty nasty shrapnel damage back here," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe it just isn't all the way healed yet?" The surface certainly appeared to be, Scott's tanned skin whole and unbroken beneath a smattering of hair and freckles.

Stiles ran his hand across the area to see if he could feel anything. He almost immediately yanked his hand away because the sensation was just _wrong._ "Holy -"

"What?" Scott was looking at him with wide eyes. "What?"

Stiles shook his head. "I don't ... hang on," he said. Replacing his hand, he ran it across Scott's skin again. He checked up and down his thigh and then across the back of his knee and calf. Scott's skin looked smooth, but his fingers told a different story. His fingers skimmed across a couple of hard little bumps that felt like ... well, he couldn't think of an appropriate analogy. They didn't feel like anything _natural_ , that was for sure, and that was what had initially creeped him out. It felt like there was something hard just below the surface instead of the smooth, firm planes of muscle and tissue that should have been there. He ran his hand up around the top and sides of Scott's thigh, but here the skin was smooth and normal.

"Stiles?" Scott asked after a few long moments of silence. "Are you just feeling me up, or is there actually something wrong?"

Stiles looked up to find Scott watching him questioningly from a few inches away. "Why is it an either or?" he retorted, sarcasm only slightly covering his growing concern. He hoped he was wrong about his suspicions. "There's something under your skin," he said slowly. "I can't see it, but I can feel it. You feel this?" Stiles pressed on one of the hard lumps on the back of Scott's thigh. It gave under his touch and Scott winced. "Yeah," he started to say. Stiles slid his thumb over and pushed on another spot, directly above the back of Scott's knee. He didn't actually feel a bump here, but if his suspicions were correct...

Scott yelped and instinctively tried to scoot backwards. Stiles immediately let up. "Ow. Yes. I felt that," Scott said a little sardonically. "What is it?"

Stiles sighed. "My guess? Shrapnel from the explosion. I took out everything I could see, but those were just the pieces long enough to still be sticking out of you. I think there are other, smaller pieces that buried themselves completely and now your body has healed over them." Stiles poked experimentally at another one of the small lumps on Scott's calf. Scott grimaced but didn't pull away.

"Most of the ones I can feel are probably pretty superficial. I think your body's just closed them off and is like, trying to either break them down or work them back out. But I think there's a some back here," he lightly brushed the problem area above the back of Scott's knee, "that are buried deep. All the way down to the bone, maybe. I think your body's healed around them, but because of where they are, moving aggravates them. If it's actually stuck _in_ the bone, it could be basically re-injuring your muscles and tendons and things every time you move," he added thoughtfully. He had read about something similar once, although it had involved a reckless teenager and a nail gun, not a werewolf and a shrapnel, but he felt like the same ideas could apply.

Scott made a face. "Great. What a lovely idea. Can we get it out?"

Stiles sucked his lips and frowned. "I don't know, maybe. Only thing we have to use is your claws though." He looked dubious. "How bad is it?"

"Bad enough," Scott said, popping the claws out on his right hand with a grimace.

Stiles had to look away as Scott tried to carefully dig into his own flesh to remove the shrapnel, but after a minute or two the young werewolf had to abandon the attempt. Perspiration beading his forehead, Scott leaned to the side and hung his head, panting in pain. Blood stained his hand and dripped from his leg onto the ground beneath him. The fact that the self-inflicted wounds mended rapidly as soon as he stopped slicing and digging didn't make the process any less painful.

"Okay, so, that's not going to work," Scott breathed through grit teeth. Claws were not precision implements designed for delicate slicing and extraction work, and trying to work semi-blind on the back of his own leg wasn't helping.

"So... you can't just do the Wolverine thing and make them pop out of you?" Stiles asked.

Scott gave an uncertain head waggle. "I guess not. Maybe that would happen if it wasn't stuck in the bone? Or, maybe it will eventually? I don't know, man." Perhaps Derek or Peter would know, but he didn't. It wasn't as if being a werewolf came with a manual.

"If we had a knife, maybe..." Stiles trailed off. He wasn't actually sure he could bring himself to slice into Scott's leg and dig around amid his flesh and gore even if it had been possible. Maybe, if he _had_ to, he could; Stiles could do a lot of things if he _had_ to. It was just that he had a weird relationship with blood these days. Gory pictures or movies had never been a problem, but seeing significant physical injury in real life used to make him feel faint. Then the Nogitsune had gotten into his head and turned it into something disturbingly erotic instead. Now he didn't know what he felt anymore, other than extremely uncomfortable and anxious about the whole thing.

Scott shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know, Stiles. We don't really know what we're looking for. It could be really small, like when you have something stuck between your teeth and it _feels_ like it's the size of a mountain, but it's actually barely as big as dental floss. I think we better just leave it be, I'll be all right."

Stiles nodded, unable to argue with that. Short of surgery they weren't equipped to perform, there didn't seem to be much they could do at the moment aside from hoping that maybe Scott's body could take care of the problem itself.

Screwing his face up into a mask of determination, Scott pulled his pants back up and pushed himself to his feet, keeping his right leg slightly bent and one hand on the wall for support.

"You gonna be okay until we can get you to Deaton?" The human boy was still resting one hand on the wall for balance himself, but he reached his other arm out towards Scott, offering to try to support him.

Scott clapped Stiles' arm in a friendly gesture, but didn't take it, continuing to use the wall for support as he experimentally tested putting weight on his injured leg.

"Yeah, it's fine," he said with a smile, the words made distinctly unconvincing by the way he grimaced and grit his teeth as he hobbled forward. He kept moving, however, and Stiles fell into step, using his cell to illuminate the way ahead of them. Scott had excellent night vision, but even he couldn't see in total blackness. Stiles had tested that out a while ago when they were still trying to discover the breadth and limits of his new abilities.

Stiles frowned as he shone the little beam of light around them, having to blink to clear his vision every so often. There was something really weird about this tunnel. The walls and floor felt like stone but they were an unusually dark, black color with little flecks of iridescence that caught the light like basalt. The ground crunched underfoot like loose earth, but the walls and ceiling were almost disturbingly smooth. The large, square channel they were traversing was definitely man-made, and yet there weren't any wooden support beams like he'd expect to find in an old mine shaft. Honestly, he had no idea how this tunnel was staying up and that scared him more than he wanted to admit. He moved forward a little faster.

"This doesn't really feel like a mine," Stiles murmured aloud, speaking to allay the claustrophobic feeling of the earth crushing down on him. "But somebody went to the trouble of building it out here. Why? Bank robbers? Old timey bootleggers?" he postulated, trying out and discarding ideas as they didn't fit. He sighed as he came around to what he considered the more likely conclusion. "With our luck it's probably the lair of some supernatural beastie that likes to maim and eat people in horrible and unusual ways," he said resignedly. "I swear these woods are like monster central. Do other places have this issue, or is it just us, do you think?"

Finally pausing for an actual response and not getting one, Stiles looked over his shoulder and then turned, bringing the light back around. "Scott?"

He'd thought his friend was right behind him, but Scott had fallen back a good half a dozen paces. Scott put his hand up in front of his eyes when Stiles accidentally shone the light in them, but Stiles could see the other boy's brow was glistening with perspiration and his mouth was set in a grimly determined line. Stiles quickly shifted the light down to their feet so it wasn't in Scott's eyes and waited for him to catch up.

"Should we take a break?" he asked out of habit as much as concern. Before two years ago, Scott having trouble keeping up with him had been a normal occurrence. He was used to the new Scott now, the one who could pretty much outdo him in everything and was more leader than follower; but old habits died hard, especially when his head wasn't entirely clear.

Scott shook his head, but stopped when he drew level with Stiles. "I'm okay," he repeated.

He obviously wasn't, but they both knew how relative that term was most days. Stiles suspected it was more than just his leg that was the problem and that Scott was still healing internal injuries they couldn't see.

"Do you think this will lead out, or only deeper in?" Scott asked, glancing questioningly over his shoulder at the passage behind them. "The others have to know what happened. They'll be trying to dig us out. Maybe we should just stay put and wait for them?"

It was a good question and Stiles mulled it over for a moment. It was possible this tunnel would go nowhere or even lead them into worse danger. Normally, if you got lost, it was smart to stay where people had the best chance of finding you ... however, when had their lives last been anything close to _normal?_

Stiles shook his head. "I don't know, Scott. Something's... something's just _wrong_ about all this. I don't think we should hang around. If anybody comes through after us, they'll find the tunnel and follow it same as we are. If it branches, we'll make sure and mark which way we went," he suggested. The truth was, he couldn't sit and do nothing when there was this unknown tunnel leading off to _somewhere._ Inaction did not suit his nature at all. _Doing_ was always better than _waiting._

"Besides, for all we know it could lead us right up out of some secret door in the woods and then they won't need to come for us." He shone the beam ahead of them again, wondering if there was any point in trying the compass app on his phone. If he knew which direction they were heading, would that offer a clue as to where this tunnel might lead?

"I've kind of found it's usually better not to wait around for rescue, you know?" he added distractedly, saying a little more than he intended, as he all too often did. A scintilla of something dark and raw twisted in his stomach, uninvited, before he quickly pushed it away in favor of focusing studiously on the problem at hand. He decided that which direction they were going probably didn't matter much. Given how deep in the woods they were, this tunnel would have to stretch pretty far to end up anywhere other than simply in the middle of _more_ woods.

Focused on his own thoughts and the passage ahead, Stiles didn't see the look of guilt that passed over Scott's face at his words.

"Why don't you wait here and I'll go on ahead a bit, see where this goes?" Stiles suggested. "It's so still in here, you can probably hear for miles. I can call if I find something..."

Scott was shaking his head before Stiles even finished. "I don't think we should split up," he countered. "We'll both go."

"You sure?" Stiles pressed, looking Scott up and down to assess his condition. "Because I mean, it could just dead-end somewhere and then we'll have to walk all the way back, anyway. Maybe it'd be better to let the leg rest a while, see if your wolfyness can't work things out?" Stiles wasn't one to coddle, but the suggestion seemed practical to him. Scott was obviously in pain. He wanted to explore, but that didn't mean Scott had to come.

Scott just _looked_ at him for a moment. "Right. Just you, your mobile phone and your somewhat concussed wits. You're going to go explore the dark, creepy, unknown tunnel - alone."

Stiles squinted at him. "Hey, my somewhat concussed wits are better than yours on a good day, okay? And I am a phone _ninja,_ gimpywolf."

Scott actually laughed. "Okay, okay. But I still think we should stick together. I'm fine, I think it's getting better," he lied, pushing himself forward and trying to keep his limping to a minimum.

"Okay," Stiles said skeptically, but didn't offer any further argument. As long as Scott felt up to it then sticking together really was the better plan. After all, despite what Scott seemed to think, he didn't actually want to be that idiot in the horror movie who went off into the dark alone so the big ugly could pick them off one at a time. Why exactly he expected this to turn out to be a horror movie he wasn't sure, except that somehow it always _did_.

"At least there's no giant slime trails or freshly gnawed bones," he commented, continuing to flick the light around them as they walked. "That's a good sign, right? Not even any big old Indiana Jones spider webs..." He frowned thoughtfully. "Actually, this tunnel is unusually clean."

"Maybe because it's been deserted a long time," Scott said hopefully.

Stiles was about to reply when they felt the ground rumble under their feet. For half a moment, Stiles thought it was because whatever lived down here was coming their way, but the rumble built swiftly into an all-out tremor that was familiar to anyone who had lived in California their whole lives.

"Earthquake!" Scott called out, like it wasn't obvious, as the ground wobbled and the tunnel walls groaned around them. Dust shook down from above, proving that the tunnel wasn't _entirely_ clean.

The quake wasn't terribly severe, but Stiles' sense of balance was still fairly impaired and he lost his footing, tumbling to his hands and knees with a painful jolt. He clutched at the ground, praying the ceiling wasn't going to cave in on them. For one heart-stopping moment he thought it had when something landed on his back, then he realized that the something was too warm and soft to be death by falling rocks. It was just Scott, crouching protectively over him, once again using himself as a human, or, well, _werewolf_ shield.

The shaking subsided without any noticeable ill-effect on the tunnel around them, but Scott and Stiles stayed where they were a few moments longer, wary of aftershocks. Stiles felt Scott's warm, rapid breath against the side of his neck. The werewolf's body was tense against his as he knelt over him, hedging Stiles in beneath him and bracing against any potential incoming blow. Stiles suspected that if the ceiling came down, it would crush them both regardless, but he appreciated the thought.

Coughing, he finally wiggled out from under his friend's protective embrace. " _Seriously?!_ " he protested to their lives in general as he dusted grit out of his hair. "Seriously, _now_?! We just _have_ to happen to have a fucking earthquake _now,_ when we're twenty thousand leagues under the fucking ground?"

Scott rolled onto his side and had the audacity to chuckle at his friend's indignation. "I think if we were _that_ deep we'd be in like, magma or something."

"Whatever," Stiles shot back wryly, spitting out some of the dusty grit he'd inhaled during the quake and rising painfully back to his feet. "You don't even know what a league _is_."

"Sure I do. It's like, a sports team or a group..." Scott teased back, intentionally misunderstanding.

"Oh my God, you're an idiot," Stiles groaned, offering Scott a hand up and helping him back to his feet.

They pressed on and were relieved when time crept by without bringing any further aftershocks. After a few minutes, the tunnel opened out into what could only be described as a large, circular room. Yawning black mouths of other passages dotted the circumference of the chamber, making it look like a sort of hub, with spokes going off in all directions.

Scott popped his claws and raked them across the edge of the tunnel they'd just left, marring the smooth black stone and marking their trail.

The two boys turned round and round as they entered the large, echoing space, craning their heads about to see. The area was too big to be illuminated all at once by their small light and they were only able to see pieces of it at a time.

Perhaps if there had been rail tracks or some kind of cart switching station here it would have made sense, but instead there was only the silent, yawning tunnels and the faint outlines of some kind of intricate pattern carved into the dark floor.

"Whoa, okay, so this is getting really ... strange," Scott observed, squinting uncertainly around them.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Stiles agreed with a frown. He made a circuit of the room with his light, examining each entryway. There were thirteen open tunnels including the one through which they had just come, all of which were identical, and one archway that looked like the entry of a fourteenth passage except that it only went in a few feet before ending in a solid slab of stone.

"Which one should we try first?" Scott inhaled deeply, trying to see if he could catch a whiff fresh air from any direction that might guide them, but everything just had the same stagnant, dusty smell.

"I vote for the closed door," Stiles said thoughtfully as he stood beside it, playing his light around the edges. "Always the most interesting."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Scott remarked, coming over to study the door with him.

There was no visible handle or opening mechanism of any kind. Stiles placed his hands against the slab, giving it an experimental push.

"Are you sure it's not just..." Scott's question trailed off abruptly when a glowing set of unfamiliar, pictographic runes flared to life above the doorway.

Stiles jerked his hands back in surprise and the images immediately started to fade away like the forgotten trails of a sparkler's path. Hesitantly, he pressed one hand back to the door and the lines brightened once more, glowing white and luminescent into the darkness.

"Well. Okay then," he said, craning his head back to try and see the symbols better. "'Cause this isn't at all weird."

"Stiles, look," Scott nudged him and Stiles turned in the direction indicated. He raised his eyebrows as he saw that symbols had appeared over the other entrances as well. The open tunnels had only one pictograph each above them, while the closed one before them had a fairly thick block of them arranged in a large square.

"Yeah, I'm gonna call it right now and say that whatever this place is, it definitely isn't an abandoned mine," Stiles opined. "Unless you're talking like, the Mines of _Moria,_ maybe," he added wryly. He pulled his hand away and watched the letters wink back out.

They re-appeared a moment later and Stiles looked over to find Scott touching the wall next to the door way. _Interesting, so it wasn't only touching the door that triggered the light show._

By mutual, unspoken consent, the two boys worked their way outward, taking turns touching the wall on either side of the entry way at increasing intervals until they discovered that whatever kind of touch sensor was at work stopped registering about three feet from the doorway in either direction.

They moved back to the door itself, Scott letting his fingers linger on the dark stone as they squinted up at the incomprehensible scrawl of symbols above them. It was clearly some kind of writing, and something about it felt vaguely familiar, but neither of them were sure why.

"What do you suppose it means?" Scott wondered aloud.

"Got me," Stiles shrugged. "Speak, friend and enter?" he joked, his mind still caught in Middle Earth, for obvious reasons. " _Mellon_ ," he tried as an afterthought; just in case because hey, you never knew, right?

Nothing happened and this time Scott shrugged. "Well, not Moria then, I guess," he said, because at least _those_ movies he'd seen, which meant Stiles didn't have to _totally_ wonder how they were actually friends.

"Yeah, it doesn't look right except for the glowing part, anyway," Stiles agreed, turning his cell's flashlight off and tucking it in his pocket to save the battery. The glowing runes gave off just about as much illumination. "The question is, is it saying _don't open this door because you'll die horribly,_ or _the escape hatch is found by following the path marked with the..._ " he squinted thoughtfully at the symbols above the other doors. " _Vomiting Parrot-head thing_?"

Scott's face scrunched as he peered up at the symbol Stiles had indicated, not seeming terribly sure he agreed with his friend's creative interpretation of the glyph.

Another small tremor shook the ground and the room plunged back into darkness as Scott's hand fell away from the door. The quake wasn't as strong as the last one and Stiles managed not to fall this time. He groped blindly sideways in the dark as it subsided, trying to find the wall in order to bring the lights back on. Scott's voice stopped him.

"Someone's coming," the werewolf whispered.

Stiles froze, hairs raising on his arms as he tried to discern whatever cue it was that had prompted that declaration. For a moment all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart. Then he heard it too, the sound of footsteps approaching. The entrance to one of the tunnels on their right started to glow with the wavering, twisting illumination of approaching lights. The fact that Scott had picked up on it only moments before it was audible to Stiles meant that either this place had funky acoustics, or Scott was still a little out of it and hadn't been paying attention.

It could be searchers, looking for them... but there was enough _weird_ about this place that neither boy felt like taking that chance. Moving with the same mind, Scott and Stiles both hurriedly started edging towards the nearest tunnel opening, but Scott grabbed Stiles' arm before they reached it, frowning and shaking his head, a look of concentration plastering his face. He inhaled deeply.

"People down that way too," he warned, although in this case Stiles could see and hear nothing. They changed course, heading for the next tunnel over, but before they could reach it, the approaching footsteps coalesced.

Several men emerged into the room on their right. Heavy-duty flashlights cast thick, twisting black shadows and lit up the inside of the large chamber with an almost painful brilliance that left the two teens no chance of escaping unseen.

Stiles winced, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes as the beams of the flashlights snapped immediately in their direction, training on them like a search light. That wasn't the only thing pointing at them. The click of weapons being drawn and safeties snapped off echoed audibly in the stone chamber as several wary, unfamiliar voices shouted for them to freeze.

Running blindly looked like it would be a really good way to get shot, so Stiles obeyed. He squinted against the glare, able to make out little other than the vague shapes of men pointing distinctly heavy looking weaponry in their direction.

Beside him, Scott had one arm up to shield his face, his head turned down towards the ground as if in pain as his sensitive eyes struggled to adjust to the abrupt shift in illumination. The young alpha's claws had dropped instinctively in response to the sudden threat. Seeing that, Stiles immediately started trying to sidle in front of him, automatically seeking to hide his friend from view in case he'd wolfed out completely. He edged sideways until another harsh warning to freeze forced him to fall still and abandon the attempt.

The lights lowered a little as the newcomers approached, and Stiles was finally able to make out the man in the lead. A man with salt and pepper hair, a weathered face and a discolored scar that looked like a spider web crawling up the lower part of his jaw.

"Well, well, look what we have here," the man said in an unpleasantly amused tone, recognizing the two teens at the same moment they recognized him.

Stiles felt his stomach lurch. _Oh. Oh_ _ **crap**_ _._


	2. Patterns and Threats

**"Patterns and Threats"**

* * *

 _6 hours previous..._

With one full Styrofoam coffee cup in his left hand and two more clutched precariously by their bases in his right, Stiles carefully navigated the steaming beverages across the room towards his goal. His concentration focused on not spilling the hot liquid on himself, he expertly dodged a harried man in uniform who brushed by him with his attention down on the folder in his hands. Stiles didn't know the man; he must be new. There was a time he'd been intimately familiar with everyone who worked at the station with his dad, but they'd lost too many deputies over the past couple years and the squad room was now a sea of mostly unfamiliar faces.

Coming to a stop beside two people whom he certainly _did_ know, Stiles set the coffee in his left hand down on the desk closest to where his father was standing, then proceeded to separate the two coffees in his other hand. He set one down by Deputy Jordan Parrish's elbow and kept the last for himself, taking a quick, deep glug of the hot liquid and grimacing at the bitter under-bite. He'd been drinking station house coffee since he was a kid and it had changed little over the years. Several creamers and a lot of sugar made it better, but it was never actually _good._

Blinking weary eyes, the teen drained his cup halfway down without pausing. It was hot, but just this side of drinkable and he needed the caffeine for more than just its energy boosting properties. He needed the little bit of extra focus it sometimes gave him.

The Sheriff was on the phone, leaning a little over Parrish's desk as he used the younger man's extension. The smile lines around his eyes were drawn down in concern and he looked exhausted. He picked up the cup Stiles had delivered and also half-drained it in one go as if in unconscious imitation of his son. Only, Stiles was the one who had absorbed the habit from his father, rather than the other way round.

Stiles picked absently at the rim of his cup, pressing blunt fingernails into it and working off spongy white chunks as he waited for his dad to finish up on the phone. He should probably be more concerned about the caffeine's potential affect on his father's blood pressure, but he knew better than to withhold it after a night like this. Besides, crappy as it was, coffee at the station was one of those things they had always shared.

When he was young and hanging out at the station after school, bringing his dad coffee had often been an excuse for Stiles to take a break from pretending to do his homework, without it blatantly seeming like he was interrupting the older man's work. Sneaking into it himself had at first been an adventure into the forbidden, but when his father realized that, completely contrary to what you would expect, the caffeinated beverage actually tended to make his hyperactive son _calmer_ rather than more hyper, he'd not objected.

Stiles remembered sitting with his dad when he was a kid, both of them with their coffee as if they were having a meeting. Stiles always wanted to know what his dad was working on, and so his father would talk cases with him. Kid-approved cases, of course, Stiles realized now: burglaries and vandalisms and petty crimes in which no one got injured. He remembered the sensation of the warm, pliable, disposable cup between his fingers as he sat there with his dad, feeling terribly grown up, feeling like a _person,_ like someone his dad could talk to and not just a burden who was always causing problems.

"Stiles," Parrish's voice made the boy start and look across at him as he was jangled from his meandering thoughts. Weariness tended to make it harder for Stiles to keep his mind from wandering off on its own random tangents.

Parrish raised his eyebrows at him, gaze falling deliberately to his desk before traveling back up to Stiles' hands.

Stiles blinked, looking down and realizing that he'd shredded the entire lip off the rim of his mangled cup. White chunks and loose little misshapen balls of polystyrene dusted the edge of Parrish's desk, drifting down onto the floor like fake snow in a Christmas display.

"Are they _sure_ it was Grumman?" his father was asking the person on the other end of the phone line with a resigned tenseness in his voice that drew Stiles' attention.

Too distracted by trying to eavesdrop to come up with anything to say to Parrish, Stiles simply swept the offending detritus off the desk into his hand. Only, his hand was still currently holding his cup, meaning he ended up sweeping the Styrofoam shreds into his coffee before realizing that that would make it undrinkable. Squinting down at the ruined beverage dubiously as this realization came to him too late, he reached over and dropped the partially empty cup into the trash can beside the desk. Just as well, his stomach felt overly acidic and it wasn't doing much for him right now, anyway.

When he turned back around, Parrish was offering Stiles his own, still untouched cup. Stiles raised his eyebrows but gave his head a little shake. "No thanks, I'm good," he assured. The older man was a good guy, but did not like nearly enough sugar in his coffee.

Shrugging, Parrish took a sip before setting it down again, well away from his keyboard. The deputy's knuckles were scrapped and he had a bruise forming under one eye. Apparently, the suspect he and the Sheriff had dragged in here and locked up in the rear holding cells a few minutes ago had not come quietly. Stiles studied his father more carefully, but although the man looked exhausted, he did not look injured.

Parrish too glanced at the Sheriff, then back at Stiles. He looked like he wanted to tell Stiles he should go home, but he didn't. Either he knew it wasn't his place, or he knew it would do no good. "Did you get any sleep?" he asked instead.

Stiles shrugged. He and sleep had a rather complicated relationship these days, but that wasn't the issue right now. "More than you," he returned, which was true, because everyone at the station had pulled an all-nighter. "What's going on?" he asked, nodding towards his father and keeping his voice low enough to not conflict with the Sheriff's phone conversation. Other than recognizing the name of the suspect they'd just brought in, he wasn't having much luck figuring out what the call was about, or why it was putting his father on edge.

John hung up before Parrish could respond. "Damn it," he swore quietly, making both Stiles and Parrish look at him with concerned expressions. The Sheriff rubbed the bridge of his nose between pinched fingers. "Grumman is a bust," he said wearily. "He's got enough child porn on his computer to put him away for life, but there's no trace of the girl and multiple witnesses place him taking photos at a playground across the city at the time Megan was abducted," he explained.

Parrish's face reflected the Sheriff's consternation at losing their best suspect, but Stiles just chewed his lip thoughtfully, slotting this not entirely unexpected turn of events into his own mental map of the situation and twisting it about to see how it fit.

"What's CSU got for us?" John asked, nodding towards the reports Parrish had been studying on computer screen when Stiles arrived.

Father and son both knew the answer from Parrish's expression before the deputy shook his head. "Not much. They weren't able to pull any useable prints from the van. They collected a lot of trace, but it'll take time to get results on that."

The Sheriff finished the rest of his coffee in another deep draught and tossed the cup. He was doing that tense, collected, overly quiet thing that he often did when he was upset. Stiles recognized it well.

"Time isn't something we have," John said quietly.

Parrish frowned, looking like he wanted to fix everything but didn't know how. "I'll talk to the lab and explain, maybe they can do something."

Stiles knew the problem was that Beacon Hills wasn't big enough to warrant its own crime lab. Most of their advanced forensics processing was handled by the county lab which was, understandably, chronically overburdened. It often took weeks or longer to get back results. Maybe with some pushing, a missing child case could get priority and speed things up, but it still probably wouldn't be soon enough. They were all acutely aware of the clock ticking down on the typically narrow window of opportunity they had for recovering the girl alive. The Sheriff looked as if he could _feel_ her slipping away from him.

Eight year old Megan Tengello had been abducted on her way back from a friend's house the previous day. Apparently, her friend had come after her to tell her something, only to turn the corner in time to witness Megan being manhandled into a van by an unknown man. The van roared away barely seconds later and the friend, Amy, had run back home to tell her mother, who promptly called 911. Amy hadn't gotten more than a glimpse of the kidnapper and could tell them little other than that the man was Caucasian, wearing dark clothing and driving a white van, which seemed to practically be a required pervert accessory as far as Stiles could tell.

A few hours ago, a tip from someone who had seen the vehicle information in Megan's Amber Alert had led them to recover a white van abandoned in a parking lot not far from where that guy Grumman lived. Running the plates revealed that the van had been stolen from a plumbing repair company in a neighboring town the day before. They couldn't be sure it was the _same_ white van Amy had seen, or that it had anything to do with the case, but it had seemed promising at first, especially since Grumman had popped up on their radar as a registered sex offender living only a few blocks away.

Now ... Stiles could feel the palpable frustration radiating off his father. Megan had been taken more than 24 hours ago. Everyone knew the statistics about recovery rates for missing children. Sheriff Stilinski and the whole Beacon Hills PD had been working around the clock since she disappeared. Adding to the urgency was that it was the second abduction in the past month. A ten year old girl named Anna had vanished from a summer carnival two weeks ago. The ensuing investigation had cleared her family and friends, but had as yet turned up no trace of the missing child.

Stiles knew that case had already been eating his father up, and now this. A lot of _bad, bloody and crazy_ had gone down in Beacon Hills lately, but there was something uniquely awful about a case when children were involved. Their town could never be accused of being _normal,_ but at the same time Stiles knew that, statistically, complete stranger abductions weren't nearly as commonplace as you'd think from watching TV shows. In a town as relatively small as Beacon Hills it was even more rare, which meant that everyone was working under the assumption that the two cases were linked.

Stiles agreed, but he was beginning to think that, as usual around here, there might be something more going on than met the eye. He and Lydia had been working most of last night and this morning on that possibility. Knowing that Grumman wasn't part of the puzzle re-shaped a few of his ideas, clearing up some things and complicating others. He was about to tell his father what they'd discovered, when the station door opened to admit two more familiar faces.

Scott and Derek entered, bringing with them the contradictory scents of fresh air and road oil. Scott was wearing his denim motorcycle jacket over a black tank top, but he wasn't carrying his helmet and his hair didn't have the squashed, damp look it usually acquired when he'd been riding.

Both werewolves looked deceptively fresh and alert, but Stiles knew them well enough to see the slight tells that betrayed the truth that they were weary too. They may have more stamina because of the whole wolf thing, but they'd not slept last night either.

The whole pack had been helping out in the search. Sheriff Stilinski had obtained one of Megan's jackets and given it to them yesterday. Since then, everyone with enhanced noses had been out crisscrossing town, trying to catch the girl's scent. It didn't have to be a supernatural case for them to want to help. The Sheriff seemed to have fewer and fewer qualms about allowing their particular brand of off the record assistance these days. However, Stiles got the feeling that even if that _hadn't_ already been the case, his father would have taken any and all help offered right now.

"It was definitely the right van," Scott said without preamble, almost as soon as they were through the doors. Derek put out a subtle hand to warn for caution as he glanced around the squad room, but the officer who had almost run into Stiles had disappeared into the back on whatever errand he'd been about and everyone else was out chasing leads. At the moment, only Parrish and the two Stilinski's were in the squad room.

Still, Scott took the hint and prudently waited to say more until they had crossed the room and could speak a little more privately. "Definitely the right van," he repeated. "We checked it out after the crime scene people left and we could still smell Megan in there."

Derek nodded. "Her and the four men who took her," he agreed, his face even more dark and broody than usual.

Parrish and the Sheriff exchanged glances.

"Four? Are you sure they were all involved?" John prodded cautiously. "That was a service van before it was stolen, there were probably a lot of people in and out of it." He looked questioningly between Scott and Derek.

"Were they all human?" Stiles put his own question in.

"There were a lot of scents, but the four men and the girl were definitely the most recent," Derek assured. "And yes, they were human."

"Those four scents all exited the vehicle in the same place," Scott continued. "They must have gotten in another car because they disappeared again almost immediately. We could kind of follow the car's trail to the road, but after that..." He made a frustrated face and shook his head.

"It's too hard to follow an individual scent on a traveled roadway," Derek explained, although they all understood.

Scott's phone buzzed and he checked it, tapping out a short reply. "Kira," he explained distractedly. "She and Malia will be here in a few. We split up to see if we could pick the trail up again anywhere along the way. I let Kira take my bike so she and Malia could try a couple of dirt roads south of 41. They didn't find anything either," he added dispiritedly, tucking his phone back into his rear pocket.

"Four men..." the Sheriff mused with a frown. "That completely changes the profile. Most stranger pedophile abductions commonly involve one or sometimes two people working together. Larger groups could mean we're looking at something more organized." Keying the radio he wore on his shoulder, he started contacting the units currently on patrol. He warned them of the possibility that they could be looking for a larger, more organized group of suspects than they'd previously thought and gave instructions for modifying their search patterns and priorities accordingly.

Parrish turned back to his computer. His fingers clacked quickly across the keys, either looking up information or updating their BOLO information.

Stiles watched them do their thing for a moment, unable to help feeling simultaneously grateful and a little afraid at how implicitly his father was ready to trust their input on these matters lately. It sure made things a lot easier than when they'd had to sneak around and lie all the time, but at the same point it meant that the circle of people who could be destroyed if they screwed up was continuing to widen.

Unable to even let himself think about the possibility that he could one day get his dad killed, like he'd gotten Allison killed, Stiles quickly looked back to Scott and Derek for distraction. Scott had his phone out again and was staring down at it with a small frown.

"So... I know Kira loves the bike, but why didn't _you_ just go down there?" he asked curiously, latching onto the first thing that came to mind for a change of mental topic. A motorcycle would be an excellent way to try and pick up scents while driving, but as far as he was aware, Kira's sense of smell wasn't actually as sensitive as that of the lupine members of the pack, at least, not yet. Maybe that would change as she grew into her abilities and acquired more tails, he really wasn't sure how all that worked for Kitsune.

Scott made a slightly embarrassed face. "I wanted Malia to check it out," he explained. "She's got the keenest nose for tracking in non-city areas, but she said all she can smell right now is _me_ if I'm too close." He shrugged, dipping his head to sniff himself. "It's not like I didn't shower yesterday," he added under his breath.

Derek shot him a wry glance. "It's not that kind of scent, Scott. She's started to accept you as her Alpha and you're stressed; she still has trouble separating her human mind from her coyote, so it's distracting," he explained. "You being agitated makes her agitated. That's also part of why Liam was being such a brat, in case you didn't realize," he added with a slight smile. He seemed to get _way_ too much enjoyment out of watching Scott have to deal with troublesome, headstrong betas.

"Really? He needs a reason?" Stiles joked sardonically. "What was he giving you grief about _this_ time?" Despite his tone, Stiles didn't actually dislike Liam anymore. The kid grew on you, like a semi-annoying but generally tolerable younger sibling you alternately wanted to protect and strangle.

Scott gave a worried little frown. "He wasn't, really," he defended the younger boy, as usual. "He's just still not happy about Mason being involved, and _apparently_ I was stressing him out without realizing it." He glanced at Derek and sniffed himself again as if trying and failing to understand what kind of scent he was unconsciously putting off. "Maybe I need to try Yoga or something, be more chill," he muttered with a sigh, running one hand wearily through his short hair.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Scott, if you were any more chill, _you'd_ be the abominable snowman. You are allowed to have feelings; they can deal," he assured dismissively.

"He's right," Derek unexpectedly backed him up. "It's not your fault they're still learning. Just give them time."

"Yeah..." Scott agreed verbally, but his expression as he stared down at his phone, avoiding his friends' gazes, didn't entirely match his words. He felt deeply responsible for the diverse little band of misfits that made up their pack and it was clear that he wasn't at all sure he was doing enough, or doing right by them. Sometimes he kind of made Stiles want to scream.

 _Speaking of screaming..._ he shot a glance back towards his father's office, and then over to where his father and Parrish were now conversing in low tones about police business. There seemed to be some kind of issue that needed untangling with one of the units in the field. He drummed his fingers on his thigh, attention darting back to Scott. He still needed to talk to his dad about his theory, and he needed to check in on Lydia, but it could wait until they got the patrol issues sorted out.

"So, let me guess, you paired Mason and Liam up to work together and Liam was pissy about it because he's still trying to act like he hates Mason so Mason will run away and not get involved with the big bad wolves?" Stiles asked instead.

Scott sighed heavily, which was an answer in itself. "More or less. Mason showed up. He wanted to help, what else was I supposed to do? It's not like this is even a supernatural thing. I don't _want_ to put him in danger, I don't _want_ to involve him in all our crap, but... I mean, I can't really _stop_ him. I tell him he doesn't have to get involved; I tell him he doesn't want anything to do with our kind of trouble, but he doesn't _listen_." Scott sounded genuinely conflicted.

Stiles snorted. "Of course he doesn't. He just found out that _werewolves_ are an actual thing, for God's sake. You can't just put a lid back on that and pretend it doesn't exist, especially when your best friend _is_ one. Well, I mean, I guess you _can_ , but he obviously doesn't want to. Heaven knows why, but Liam's his friend and he wants to be there for him. Liam should just stop being a dick and trying to push him away. They both know he doesn't really mean it; the kid's a _terrible_ actor."

"Liam just doesn't want him to get hurt," Scott said quietly. "I can't blame him for that. Mason almost _died._ "

" _Because_ he didn't know what was going on. Now he does," Stiles pointed out.

"That won't stop him from getting hurt again," Scott's voice was troubled. "I don't like Liam being mean to Mason to try and get him to go away, but I understand how he feels. He doesn't want to be responsible for getting his friend hurt, or killed. Liam can heal, but Mason's..."

"Human?" Stiles finished for him, his tone flat.

Scott looked away, expression guilty.

"Look, it's all bullshit, anyway," Stiles said unequivocally. "Liam needs to stop thinking this is all about him and give Mason some credit as a person and not an appendage. Mason's a smart kid, if he wanted to walk, he would. If he wants to stick by his friend and get involved in all this shit, then, well, okay, maybe he's not _that_ smart after all, but it's still his choice. Liam doesn't get to decide that for him just because he's the one sprouting fangs."

Scott nodded. "No," he agreed. "He doesn't. But that doesn't mean he doesn't feel responsible anyway. Liam said that death follows us and I ... I mean, what can I say to that?" Scott was studiously checking his phone again, not looking at Stiles.

Stiles suddenly wondered how much of this conversation was really about Liam and Mason. He opened his mouth and then shut it again. The irony of it was that Scott and Liam weren't the ones who had anything to feel responsible _for_. They weren't the ones with blood on their hands and ghosts waiting every night by their beds. He looked away and said nothing.

Derek looked between the two boys with an expression that suggested he very much wanted to smack them both in the head. "You can _tell him_ to stop being a melodramatic teenager and that death follows everybody," he said bluntly. "It catches up a lot less frequently, however, when there are people you can trust to have your back and who are willing to trust you with theirs. He should never take that for granted. Someday, he'll realize how lucky he is."

Scott smiled slightly, as if Derek grumping at them somehow cheered him up a little. "Because the bite is a gift?" he asked with just a touch too much innocence, causing Stiles to roll his eyes and make a gagging motion that everyone ignored.

Derek scowled at Scott, but only with his face, not with his eyes. "Because _pack_ is a gift, and even if what he is puts him in danger, it has also given him the most loyal set of friends he's ever likely to find," he said simply. "Once he learns to deal with the frequent urge to kill you all, that is," he added with a wry quirk of his lips. "And believe me, _that_ takes time."

Stiles grinned and Scott chuckled, the mood successfully lifted. "I guess I just wish I could keep them _both_ out of it," Scott admitted. "You know, just let them live their lives."

The truth was, Scott had made quite an effort the past few months to do that just. He'd tried to not pull Liam into pack business. He'd tried to shield him and let the kid have as normal a life as possible. In other words, all the things no one had been in a position to do for Scott, when Peter turned _his_ world upside down. It was just that it wasn't really possible. _Stuff happened_ was kind of the story of their lives, and it wasn't as if Liam actually _wanted_ to stay away, despite how he was acting right now.

"I know," Stiles returned, pushing his hands into his pockets with a shrug. "But this kind of _is_ their lives now. I don't know if we can change that, Scotty. As much as it pains me to say," Stiles shot a smirk in Derek's direction. "I think Derek's right. They just have to adjust. Find their new normal. I mean, it worked for us, right?" Stiles winced immediately at his own words, digging his hands self-consciously deeper into his pockets. "Okay, bad example," he backtracked quickly, not having meant to intimate that there was anything _okay_ about some of the shit they'd been through. "But you know what I mean."

Scott looked at him quizzically, brows furrowing in a hint of probing concern.

"Look, Liam's not really pissed at you, okay?" Stiles hurried on, seeking to evade and distract. "Most of the time he follows you around like a puppy. Right now, he's just not dealing well with the whole Mason thing. He's scared and he's taking it out on you because he thinks you can fix everything and he wants you to make it all better." Stiles shrugged again. "But this is something he and Mason have to work out for themselves. And, anyway, there's like, a missing kid so, bigger concerns right now, yeah? Speaking of..." Stiles bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet, glancing over towards where his father and Parrish _finally_ looked to be wrapping up. "I found something kind of... weird. Soon as Dad's done I really need to show you."

Scott nodded, looking interested and curious. "What did you find?" He checked his phone one more time before tucking it away again.

Stiles hesitated. This wasn't going to be an easy sell and he'd rather go through it once with everybody.

Just then the door opened again, admitting Kira and Malia and a fresh gust of air laced with pine and exhaust fumes. Kira was carrying Scott's helmet and she definitely had helmet hair going on, although she somehow managed to make it look kind of adorable.

"Can I help you?" the deputy that had nearly collided with Stiles earlier was back, frowning at the sudden crowd of teenagers in the squad room as he addressed the two girls.

"Oh! Um... Hi!" Kira said brightly, giving the man an uncertain little wave and glancing anxiously over towards Scott and the others as if unsure what to do. Malia just looked at the man like she was considering the possibility of eating him, which, you know, maybe she was. Or maybe it was just the genetic Hale glare making an appearance.

"It's fine Gregg, they're coming to see me," Sheriff Stilinski called over to the man, waving Kira and Malia over. "We've got a prisoner in holding, can you check on him and then man the phones for a while? I may need to go out," he added.

"Yes, sir," the young deputy named Gregg acquiesced with a smart nod, leaving them alone again for a few moments longer. The two girls hurried over.

Kira handed Scott his helmet and keys. "Thanks," she said. "Sorry we couldn't find anything useful. Did Liam and Mason have any better luck?"

Scott grimaced slightly, sliding the keys in his pocket and tucking the helmet under his arm. "I don't know. I've texted a couple of times, but he's not answering me."

Kira made a sympathetic face. "Did you try Mason?"

"Where are the wonder boys anyway?" Stiles put in, realizing Scott hadn't actually said anything about _what_ he'd sent them to do.

"Yeah, I just did," Scott answered Kira first, then Stiles. "I asked the two of them to go around to stores and restaurants near where the van was found to see if they could pick up any of the kidnappers' scents in the area. If they stopped somewhere that has security cameras, maybe your dad can pull footage."

Stiles nodded approvingly. "A surprisingly good idea," he ribbed lightly, although it was also the safest, most low-key job Scott could have given them. Stiles suspected that Scott hoped making them spend time together would start to ease the tension between the two friends. He probably thought he was being sneaky, but Scott was about as subtle as a neon shirt.

"Are we going to be doing any more searching?" Malia wanted to know; offering living proof that someone could, in fact, be less subtle than Scott McCall.

"Not until we have someplace to look," Sheriff Stilinski broke in, coming around Parrish's desk to join them. "I appreciate everything you all have done, but you should probably go home and get some rest now."

"But not just yet," Stiles interrupted, bouncing on the balls of his feet again. "Come on, I need to show you something." He led them back towards his father's office, where he and Lydia had been camped out for the better part of the night while his father was out chasing down Grumman.

He'd been gone a lot longer than he'd expected and Stiles was honestly a little surprised that Lydia hadn't come out to join them. Although, she did tend to lose track of time when she was doing her Banshee thing, and she had been deep into listening to tuning forks when he left. No, he didn't really understand how that worked, but it seemed like things that vibrated or created repetitive white noise of any type acted as a kind of conduit for the voices Lydia could hear. Different pitches of tuning forks were the latest method she was trying, to varying degrees of success.

As soon as Stiles opened the door, he realized something was wrong. Lydia was crumpled on the floor on her knees, tuning forks scattered around her. She was hunched over, her hand pressed over her mouth as she rocked back and forth, crying silently.

"Lydia!" several voices said in concern at once. Stiles dropped by her side immediately, taking her shoulders gently. Scott was almost instantly on the other side of her. For a moment almost everyone was trying to press in close in their concern for her wellbeing, but Scott held up his hand, asking them to give her a little space. They did.

Lydia squeezed Scott's hand tightly and let her head rest briefly on Stiles' shoulder as she composed herself.

Kira hovered nearby. Worried, but apparently trying not to stare, her eyes darted around to take in the office instead, lingering especially long on the unusually re-decorated floor.

Stiles had laid out a good approximation of a case-board on the short, worn carpet. Reports, notes and pictures sprawled about, connected with different colors of tape that the younger Stilinski had appropriated from his dad's desk.

The Sheriff carefully navigated around the snaking lines of color on his floor, managing not to step on anything as he made his way over and crouched in front of the small group by the desk.

"Lydia, are you all right?" he asked gently. "Are you hurt?" Parrish handed him a tissue from his desk and John offered it to Lydia.

Lydia shook her head. She accepted the tissue and wiped at her eyes, dabbing at the smeared mascara on her cheeks. "It's... It's Anna," she said softly. "And the others. Not all, but... many."

Beside her, Stiles tensed, squeezing her shoulders with both agitation and reassurance. "Aw, fuck," he muttered with feeling, then winced when he glanced at his dad. He'd been afraid of this. There were a lot of times he hated being right.

The elder Stilinski had frozen, a deep look of pain on his features. "Anna and Megan are dead?" he asked as gently as he could, his expression saying just how much he dreaded the answer.

Lydia straightened, visibly pulling herself together as she wiped her eyes one more time and lifted her chin. The things she felt and the things she heard were hard on her at times, but there was a core of steel in her spirit that always shone through.

"Anna," Lydia said quietly, "but not Megan. Not yet." There was a clear, burning resolve in her eyes that said she was determined to do whatever she could to keep it that way.

John nodded once, looking grim but unsurprised. Anna been gone too long for there to be much hope left. The weight of failure hung heavy on his shoulders, but he had been doing this job too long to let that eclipse the urgent need to focus on a potential victim who might yet be saved.

"Do you have any idea where Anna died or where Megan is? What did you mean by _the others_?" the Sheriff prodded, his voice carefully even, as if trying not to let his urgency make him press Lydia too hard. "Are you saying there's more missing kids we don't know about?"

Lydia shook her head with a grimace in response to his first question. "Not really. It's... it's confusing," she admitted with equal parts uncertainty and frustration. She glanced over at Stiles.

"Not more kids, but there are other missing people," Stiles took over answering the second part of the question. "A _lot_ of missing people. That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Giving Lydia's shoulder one more squeeze, he rose so he could step out and gesture to the case board he'd splayed across the floor.

"There's something weird going on. I mean, like... maybe our kind of weird," he ran a hand through his messy hair. "Either that or we've got one hell of a bizarre sort of human trafficking thing going on."

Parrish frowned, cocking his head to the side as his gaze traced over Stiles' floor map. "There's been a small uptick in missing persons reports over the past few weeks, but nothing above a normal level of fluctuation," he commented, crouching to look at where Stiles had a number of those reports laid out in a line with colored tape snaking away from them.

"Right," Stiles agreed with a nod. "Especially in a town like this which kind of swallows people at a higher than normal rate anyway. Besides that, they're all the usual suspects," Stiles nudged the line of missing persons reports with his toe. "People with known addiction problems or a history of disappearing on their own who haven't come home in a while, street walkers reported missing from their usual patches by anonymous friends who only know their street names, and so on. _But,_ " he stressed the word. "Let's add that to the disappearances you only see by a _lack_ of reports."

Stiles moved a few steps to the side and crouched by another corner of his floor puzzle. "You know that carnival where Anna disappeared? The first two nights it was in town, carnival security reported having to evict vagrants attempting to sleep on the grounds at night. Anna didn't disappear until the fourth day, after the reports had already stopped, so it wasn't much of a connection, but I was kind of just looking at everything, you know? So at first I just wanted to track those 'vagrants' down to see if they were involved or had seen anything, but once I started digging, I found something a lot stranger.

"You know how the home owners' associations down by Manchester and Crane kept complaining about the panhandlers in the medians by the stoplights? A week before Anna disappeared, the complaints stopped. No more panhandlers. You know how a squad car always goes down to check on the homeless people that camp out around the K Square bridge ever since that trouble with those stupid kids harassing them? Past two weeks - nothing to report. No people down there."

Stiles leaned and reached out, touching different reports and hand written notes on the floor as he spoke, as if playing a rapid game of twister.

"It goes on and on," Stiles jabbed his finger at a particularly thick stack of reports. "Last week, good old Mr. Johnson suddenly stopped filing his biweekly complaints about the homeless people sleeping behind his deli and peeing in the bushes. That was pretty recent, so he could have just been late or something, but I called him up, pretending to be a deputy checking in..."

"I didn't hear that," Sheriff Stilinski said with a tired sigh.

Stiles ignored him and kept talking. "... and nope, he was happy as a clam because he'd not seen a glimpse of anyone back there almost a week and a half."

"Maybe they moved on because they finally got tired of his griping?" Parrish suggested, but he had a thoughtful frown on his face that indicated he could see where Stiles was going with all this.

Stiles shook his head. "No, I don't think so. It's too wide-spread. There could be explanations for any one of these by themselves, but all of them together? Look, I called soup kitchens and shelters and pretty much everybody I could think of who would talk to me when they say the police department on caller ID, and there has been a significant drop in the number of people coming to them over the past few weeks. They say it happens sometimes in the summer, people move around more or come into the shelters less, but most of them agreed that even so, it was more pronounced than usual."

"Okay... and this relates to Anna and Megan's abductions, how?" John asked, squinting thoughtfully at the documents on the floor and looking to Stiles for clarification. His tone wasn't exactly skeptical, but it was uncertain. He didn't seem to doubt his son's convictions, but still appeared to have some reservations about his conclusions.

Stiles bit his lip and shook his head. "I'm... not exactly sure," he admitted somewhat unwillingly. "I had a working theory, with Grumman as a kind of half _Cuco_ -like thing that was snacking on kids and vulnerable old people, but I wasn't loving it, and now I think we can probably rule him out. The fact that the four dudes in the van were all human also adds a new wrinkle. Look, I know it may seem a little thin, but _something_ is going on," he insisted.

"I don't know why, but someone or some _thing_ is snatching up a lot of low-risk targets while everybody's focus and attention is on the more visible child abductions. I'm sure of it." Stiles gesticulated earnestly for emphasis. He could practically _feel_ the pieces jostling together in his brain, telling him they were related; he just couldn't seem to untangle the murky connections and that was frustrating.

"I think so too," Lydia agreed, drawing all eyes back to her once more. "We haven't found anything that seems to fit in the Bestiary or any other lore. I don't know how it could possibly be connected either, but I do know that a lot of those missing people are also dead. I ... hear them," she whispered. She rubbed her arms, but her jaw was set with determination. "Or, echoes, of them, anyway. It's all a jumble of confusion and terror. The voices speak of a little girl and of monsters and darkness and _the_ _bad men_. It feels like they died in the same place, although I can't seem to get a clear notion of where exactly that is, or even ... _when_ ," she admitted with a troubled expression. "But people have died. And more people are going to die."

Closing her eyes and drawing a deep breath, Lydia pulled herself to her feet. She stared down at the maze of connections on the floor, tissue wadded up tightly in her hand. "Wherever these people are ending up, humans aren't the only ones being targeted," she said quietly. "There were werewolves among the dead. I felt ... I heard..." She pursued her lips as if it was difficult to put into words how she knew the things she knew. Giving up with a shake of her head, she fixed her gaze on Scott instead.

"Scott, we'd know if we were missing anybody. You should check with Satomi," she suggested. "See if any of her people have died or disappeared in the past few weeks."

Scott was already digging out his phone with a serious, worried expression and pulling up his contact list. As he made the call, Stiles glanced over towards Derek and Malia.

"How _sure_ are you that the four guys in the van were all human?" he asked. If Lydia was right, which he didn't doubt for a moment, and if the same people really were behind all of this, then that meant whoever they were, they were capable of abducting and killing _werewolves,_ which had a serious impact on their suspect list.

"Very," Derek responded.

Stiles crouched, gazing at the spider web of information he'd laid out on the floor. Frowning thoughtfully, he twisted around the new pieces of information they'd gathered in his head, trying them against one another and against other theories he'd entertained like someone looking for connecting pieces of sky in a jigsaw puzzle. He hadn't had much luck coming up with any concrete new matches by the time Scott got off the phone again.

"So, I'm pretty sure at least a couple of Satomi's wolves are unaccounted for." Scott's quiet, worry-laden words brought the room's attention back to him.

Stiles rose back to his feet and turned towards him. "They're missing?" He'd been too lost in thought to eavesdrop properly.

Scott made a waffling gesture with his hand. "She seems to think that's too strong a word. I guess her pack has been having some issues trying to regroup after the whole Benefactor thing and some of them are having trouble finding their center again. She thinks they just need some time and they'll come back on their own, but she didn't seem to want to tell me exactly how long it had been since she'd seen them, or how many we were talking about."

"And she isn't worried about them?" Kira looked like the idea surprised and displeased her. After everything that had happened recently, it _was_ a little odd for any of them to take unexplained disappearances too lightly.

"She thinks they've lost it and gone rogue," Derek stated. "I'm sure she's been looking for them, but she doesn't want to admit it and get others involved. She wants to find them first so she can clean up anything that needs cleaning up, save them if she can; deal with them if she can't." He shrugged like this was obvious, and maybe to someone who had for at least part of his life grown up in an established pack, it was.

Derek looked over at Scott. "She respects you or she wouldn't have admitted there was anything amiss at all, but that doesn't mean she wants you dealing with those she considers hers."

Scott nodded slowly. "If that's true, then she should know they could be in danger. Maybe I should call her back, tell her what we suspect..."

"Which is what, exactly?" the Sheriff asked. "That we think there is someone out there who is randomly kidnapping kids, homeless people and werewolves?"

"Well it sounds bad when you put it _that_ way..." Stiles commented, earning him a wry, weary look from his father.

"Then enlighten me, because I still don't understand the connection."

" _Could_ those werewolves have gone rogue? Maybe they ate the homeless people, Satomi put them down, and the children are just a different, human thing?" Malia suggested.

"There's too many, and they all disappeared from pretty populated areas." Lydia shook her head. "I think someone would have noticed a bunch of out of control werewolves on a rampage that significant."

"Maybe it's another sacrifice thing?" Stiles postulated, although it was only a guess; he didn't have any real facts to back it up. "They fill some particular type of criteria? After all, the only thing they seem to have in common is that they're all dying." He hadn't meant the words to sound flippant. He'd meant it factually, but he wasn't always the best judge of how he came across to others.

There was an awkward pause for a moment before Lydia broke the silence. "They are," she said quietly. "And more will, if we don't do something. Listen, I don't know if this means anything, but when I was alone in here before, I was trying really hard to listen and ..." she trailed off with uncharacteristic hesitance, perhaps searching for adequate words.

"You heard something?" "What did you hear?" Scott and Stiles prompted eagerly at nearly the same time and the Sheriff shot them a _let her talk_ look.

"Well, that's just it, it wasn't really something I _heard,_ but then I didn't really _see_ it either. It was sort of like a dream... I guess _impression,_ is the best way I can describe it. I got some weird impressions at the same time I felt Anna and the others. The sensation of them all at once was so strong and it was like a wave, carrying debris along with it, if that makes sense."

No one ventured an opinion either way, so Lydia simply continued. "Look, I don't know what any of this means, all right?" she prefaced, holding her hands up as if in disclaimer. "Or if it means anything at all. But after what I found out about my grandmother and how hearing imaginary thunder was a precursor to someone she loved dying ... I would rather be safe than sorry."

She took a deep breath. "Especially since... I heard thunder too," she said quietly, and Stiles could see that this was distressing to her whether she wanted to admit it or not. "I heard thunder. Loud and sharp, like the sky was breaking. I smelled rain and then this scent that was like crushed grass and ozone." Lydia rubbed her own arms briskly, her skin tense with goose bumps as she called the memories back to the fore.

"I had the feeling of being somewhere very dark and then there was a bright green light," she frowned, closing her eyes as she spoke. "I saw a large, rusting van with the letters _LORES_ on the side, surrounded by flowers. Then there was just one flower, a lotus blossom I think, only it was crimson, dripping with blood, and ... and well, that's all." She swallowed, but shrugged as if wanting to take it all more lightly than she really did. She didn't say that the feelings accompanying the last image had nearly made her scream, but something in her eyes suggested it.

"Do you usually have visions like this?" Parrish asked with interest.

Lydia shook her head. "I don't have _visions_ , I hear things," she corrected. "Usually, anyway. I used to see things that weren't there, in the beginning," she admitted thoughtfully. "Especially when Peter was messing with my head. I think that somehow, he knew how to contact me, how to _make_ me see things. These impressions... they were a lot more jumbled and fractured. I felt like I was seeing bits of things that other people had seen, but without any context."

Parrish seemed deeply fascinated by this. He looked like he wanted to ask another question, but didn't get the chance.

" _LORES..._ and flowers," Sheriff Stilinski interjected suddenly, his expression and body language animated by a new burst of energy. "I know where to find that van." He reached over to his desk and snapped up his keys.

"So do I," Derek agreed, already heading out the office door.

Stiles trotted along quickly behind them. "Okay, great! How about sharing? Where are we going?" He pressed as the whole group exited the station en-masse.

"That vehicle Lydia described, it's an old delivery van from a florist shop that went under years ago. The name of the shop was _Delores,_ but several of the letters have rusted away," John explained as they jogged down the stairs towards the parking lot. "It was abandoned out in the preserve with a bunch of other junk. We've been called out there a few of times over the years on assault or nuisance complaints."

Derek nodded. "Kids used to go out there to get drunk, high or laid."

"Still do," the Sheriff agreed.

"How come I didn't know that? Did you know that?" Stiles asked Scott, who shook his head, eyebrows up. "Okay, that's just wrong. How come the people who actually _are_ kids don't know these things? Our lives are obviously way too sheltered," he griped.

"As I recall, there's some caves not far from there. Nothing very deep or extensive, but they're worth checking out," Derek said to the Sheriff, ignoring Stiles. "It could be a good place to hide prisoners."

Outside, the day was starting to darken despite the early hour. Heavy clouds were edging their way across the sun and even to Stiles' human nose, the cooling air smelled like approaching rain. Somewhere in the far distance, thunder rumbled faintly.

Lydia's steps faltered. She blanched visibly, glancing up at the sky and rubbing her arms. Kira noticed and gave her a little side-ways hug as they walked.

Stiles frowned thoughtfully and turned to say something to Scott, but Scott had his head down over his phone again as he walked, thumbs rapidly working the touch screen keyboard. Stiles automatically pushed into his friend's personal space to read the message. Scott leaned his head aside a little to let him, attention still focused on the phone.

Stiles frowned when he saw that Scott was texting Liam yet again in an effort to find out where he was. The screen showed only outgoing messages from Scott, no inbound replies.

"You know, I get that this is a novel concept, but you could just try _calling_ him," Stiles pointed out, the two boys' shoulders bumping as they walked too closely together.

Screeching tires made both their heads swivel up and Stiles collided with Scott's elbow when his friend stopped moving more quickly than he did.

A familiar car parked crooked across two empty spaces a dozen yards away and an equally familiar figure stumbled out of the driver's side door.

"Mason!" Several voices shouted at the same time, with varying degrees of alarm.

Blood from a gash above his right eye, near his scalp, crusted the side of the boy's face. He struggled to extricate himself from the car and hurry towards them, but his unsteadiness seemed more to do with his haste rather than any particular impairment.

Everyone moved in his direction at once, but Scott reached him first.

"Mason! Are you okay? What happened?" Scott caught the younger teen, steadying him and trying to get a look at his injuries. In addition to the head wounds, Mason had a split lip and there were scrapes on his knuckles and palms.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Mason insisted hurriedly, trying to shake off Scott's concern. "You got to come, quick. They took Liam, man. They took him!"

Stiles felt a chill settle in the pit of his stomach.

"What do you mean? _Who_ took him _where_?" Scott kept hold of Mason's shoulders, his face reflecting concern, but his tone surprisingly calming.

Mason drew a deep breath and seemed to collect himself. "I don't know; I didn't recognize any of them. There were four, maybe five of them. I only got a semi-decent look at two: an Asian guy with black hair and sunglasses and a bald white guy. They were both pretty big and dressed in dark clothing. Liam and I had just checked out the motel on 14 when this blue SUV pulls up and these guys just ... jumped us. They knew, man. They knew what Liam is. First thing, the window comes down and _bam,_ they shoot him with some kind of dart. It looked like a tranquilizer maybe, like in the movies. The thing is, I was waiting inside the car, behind a couple other, empty cars. Liam was... Liam didn't want me along when he checked out the motel, so I was waiting and he was on his way back alone. Liam was the target; I don't think these dudes knew I was there."

Mason breathed deeply again. He shook his head as if struggling to recall and impart everything as quickly and clearly as he could. He was a smart kid and he seemed to understand that while time may be of the essence, so was understanding and information.

"Liam went down almost as soon as he was hit and those two guys hopped out of the car to grab him. He was still conscious, but like, drugged or something. I tried to stop them. A third guy got out of the car and things didn't go so well. I got clubbed and I kind of thought they were going to kill me, but Liam went completely _nuts_ on them. Drugged or no, he totally wolfed out. That's when I knew they already knew, because they weren't freaked out. I mean, they were staying out of his reach, for sure, but it was more _oh crap we didn't use enough tranquilizer for this one_ and less _oh crap what the hell is that thing?_ If you know what I mean."

Stiles did know, so he nodded a trifle impatiently. "Yes, okay, and?"

" _And_ ," Mason looked away, pulling back out of Scott's grip, his shoulders stiffening. "I ran away, obviously." His tone was sharp with self derision. "We tried to make it back to the car, but Liam was really messed up and there were four of them now, right on us. We weren't going to make it. Liam... he told me to run. He told me to get you," he said, looking at Scott. "To get you and tell you that it was _them,_ the same guys who took the girl. Then he rushed them; bought me time to get away. They shot him a few more times with the tranquilizer and I saw him go down in the rearview. I should have gone back." Mason's voice was frustrated with the stress and pain of the choices he'd had to make. "But I lost my phone in the fight, and if we both just disappeared..."

"You did the right thing," Scott assured. "Staying wouldn't have helped. Now we know what happened and we can do something."

"I got your text about meeting at the station right before all this went down, so I came straight here," Mason said, in lieu of responding to the reassurance. His eyes said he knew he'd chosen the better of two evils, but that it would still probably be a while before he forgave himself. "They seemed really intent on taking him alive, but we have to hurry. I can take you back to where they jumped us. Maybe you can track them or..." he stopped, seeming to recall how impossible it had already proved for the werewolves to trace a vehicle once it was on the road. He bit his lip and waved his hands. "... or _something._ We have to find him," he finished, fixing an urgent, almost pleading gaze on Scott, as if he thought the older werewolf might need convincing.

He didn't. Scott was already nodding. "We will," he promised. "We'll find him and get him back, Mason. We've got a lead on where the kidnappers may be hiding out. If the same people took Liam, then odds are they'll take him to the same place as the others."

A faint wind was starting to pick up, sending a few discarded candy wrappers and pizza flyers flutteringly skittishly across the parking lot.

A half-hearted effort was made to make Mason stay and get his head wound looked at, but the teen refused to be left behind and in the end the attempt was abandoned as a lost cause. Truthfully, they didn't have time to waste in arguing. Liam's capture added a renewed need for haste to their situation, as did the gathering storm clouds. While getting off the road and heading into the woods increased the likelihood of them being able to pick up useful scents, rain would wreak havoc with their tracking abilities.

As Stiles claimed shotgun on his father's cruiser and quickly buckled himself in, he felt a gnawing sense of urgency tugging at his gut. They were still in the dark about the reasons for this bizarre pattern of abductions, but they did know that many of the previous victims were dead and snatching Liam meant that whoever was behind this had just completed another full set in their eclectic, ternary collection of children, homeless people and werewolves.

That could not be good.


	3. Down the Rabbit Hole

**"Down the Rabbit Hole"**

* * *

 _4 hours previous..._

Wind rustled through the trees, the sun peeking out from amid the gathering clouds to cast dancing shadows and gild the edges of the leaves in pale gold. A darker, heavier line of clouds crept in from the horizon. The thunderheads were still a fair distance away, but everyone could feel the shift in atmosphere by now. Even the humans in the party were aware of the smell and sensation of an approaching storm as they worked their way through the woods on foot, cars abandoned on the dirt access road half a mile away.

There were traces of what once must have been another side road, or perhaps just a wide trail, which continued on in more or less the same direction which they were heading. Whatever it had once been, it was now long overgrown. Thick swaths of young, sturdy trees now studded the former trail, making it impossible to navigate any kind of larger vehicle in here.

Scott and Derek took point, pulling further ahead of the others as the small group picked their way through an area littered with the rusting, overgrown hulks of derelict washing machines, refrigerators, couches and other large articles of furniture discarded in years past by people who had apparently not wanted to pay for disposal. Nature was claiming them slowly, eating away fabric and soft wood and leaving behind only the more resilient metal and hardwood bones, which stuck from the earth like skeletons rising from a shallow grave.

Stiles had never been out to this particular spot that he recalled, but a funny sense of familiarity tingled over his skin like the brush of static electricity. It wasn't deja-vu, so much as the feeling one got when they smelled a familiar scent or heard a strain of a song they knew, but couldn't place.

"Anything?" Sheriff Stilinski called to the two werewolves from his and Parrish's protective positions on either side of the little expedition.

"Maybe," Scott called back uncertainly. "A couple people have been out here sometime recently, but no one I recognize."

There was a pall of tension hanging over the group. Somewhere during the relatively long walk out here, it had started to settle on everyone just how thin the thread they were following really was. It wasn't that anyone doubted what Lydia had seen, but even she couldn't be sure what it meant. The truth was that she was best at finding bodies. It could be they were coming out here to discover a dump site, and not a hideout as they hoped. This was why the Sheriff hadn't called away any of his other deputies, who were already spread thin in their search. That, and the fact that it uncomplicated a lot of things if none of the pack had to hide what they were.

Stiles glanced over at Lydia. She had her arms folded across her middle, hugging herself as she walked. Her body was stiff with tension and he wasn't sure if she was more apprehensive about being wrong, or about being right.

Ahead, the husk of the old delivery van loomed dark against the foliage, its larger shape making it a kind of focal point amid the generalized disorder. No new furniture or appliances had been dumped here in quite some time, but a liberal scattering of trash, including maybe several hundred broken bottles and crushed beer cans, spoke to the fact that it was not completely abandoned.

It may not be a high traffic area, but it still struck Stiles as odd that kidnappers would choose to bring their prisoners near some place that was still clearly seeing use when there were plenty of other, much more remote areas of the Preserve, if they were simply looking for a hideout.

As Stiles drew closer to the van, he could see that there were indeed curvy, old-fashioned letters that spelled _LORES_ visible on the side of the wreck. Around them crowded the faded image of dozens of flowers, partially painted over in places with multiple layers of lackluster graffiti. Scott and Derek had paused by the derelict vehicle. It looked like they were studying the rust patterns pock marking its body, but as Stiles reached them, he realized that it wasn't rust they were looking at. It was blood.

There was so much actual rust eating away at the old vehicle it was hard to tell from a distance, but up close it was impossible for anyone who knew what to look for to mistake the fresh spots of dark, rusty brown for anything other than what they were. The dried blood was spattered at around head height, a hundred little droplets dashed across both the ancient floral pattern and the more recent neon graffiti below. Some of them were large enough to drip downward under their own weight. It wasn't fresh, but it was new enough that time and weather had not dulled the outline.

Scott could obviously smell the blood and he looked unhappily at Stiles as he approached. "One of the trails ends here," he said quietly.

"That's because someone died here," Lydia said quietly, arms still folded, her fists clenched as if she were fighting the urge to reach out and touch the unpleasant tableau. "That's... probably why it came to me," she murmured, looking away.

Stiles resisted the urge to ask who had died. If either Scott or Lydia knew the answer, they would have said something. It mustn't be anyone they knew. He looked back at the blood, assessing. Something had smeared through a section of it when it was still wet, creating a red brown smudge across the outline of a couple cheery, faded daisies. _They weren't exactly lotus blossoms, but there certainly was blood on these flowers, just like Lydia had seen._

"High velocity spatter," Parrish remarked, speaking the very words that had just been going through Stiles' head. The deputy snapped a photo of it with his phone. "Whoever it was, they were shot."

"Trying to escape, or just wrong place, wrong time?" Stiles wondered aloud, but no one had an answer for that either.

John silently pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and used his knife to carefully scrape loose a piece of bubbling paint with a fair amount of blood on it. He bagged it. It wasn't an official evidence collection, but it would have to do for now. The Sheriff clearly realized that the coming storm was likely to wash all this away and destroy any possibility of them being able to identify the unknown victim later.

"Where does the trail go from here?" John prodded as he tucked the little bag away again.

"This way," Scott nodded with his chin, slipping off in the indicated direction with Derek on his heels.

Stiles started to follow, but hung back when he saw Lydia still standing, staring at the van with unseeing eyes.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked quietly.

Lydia shook herself, her eyes re-focusing as she looked towards him. She didn't speak but she nodded, giving him a tight little smile as she started off after the others.

They caught up with Mason and Kira as they navigated around the moldering remains of a garishly plaid chaise lounge that sort of deserved its fate. Stiles wasn't sure where Malia had disappeared to, but she was probably around somewhere. Their resident coyote had a tendency to go off on her own, but she was learning to stay within earshot, at least.

Scott and Derek were a fair ways ahead of them already, almost obscured by the dense foliage through which they waded. The wind changed direction and kicked up a notch, making willowy tree branches smack and flutter against Stiles' body as he tried to duck around them.

"Liam!" Scott's voice came back to them, his tone suddenly sharp and alert. "I smell Liam."

Stiles sped up, pushing his way through the undergrowth ahead of the others in an effort to reach Scott before he took off without him.

His father seemed to have the same concern. "Wait! We don't know what we're facing here and we need to stick together," he cautioned, his own gait speeding up, but not so much that he would risk outdistancing Lydia, Mason and Kira.

Stiles wasn't sure if that injunction was directed at Scott and Derek, or at himself as he crashed through the trees to catch up, but Scott and Derek listened better than he did. Stiles caught up with them a few yards further along and stumbled ungracefully to a halt.

"You smell them; they went through here?" he asked immediately, only slightly out of breath as his gaze darted searchingly around the thick underbrush through which they were wading.

"I smell _Liam_ ," Scott said with a trace of hesitancy. "Not here, not part of this trail, but... somewhere nearby. It was on the wind."

"Just Liam, nobody else?" Stiles frowned. "That doesn't make sense."

"It does," Derek said a trifle impatiently, looking over Stiles' shoulder to see the rest of the group now drawing even with them. "Liam's pack and he's your beta; you're more attuned to him. He's a familiar scent, so you can sense and smell him at greater distances," he said to Scott.

They all continued on together, Scott leading the way. A rocky hill, steep enough to almost be considered a cliff rose away to their right. As they found themselves slogging through a rather unpleasant smelling boggy area that spread out along the base of the rise, something suddenly clicked in Stiles' mind. He'd never come into this part of the woods from this particular angle before, but he had a suspicion he knew now where the familiar feeling was coming from. It didn't exactly make him happy, but it could be relevant.

"Hey," he murmured, bumping Scott's side for attention. "You know where we are?"

Scott blinked at him, frowning. "In the woods?" he answered slowly, obviously aware that wasn't the right answer, but unsure what Stiles was driving at.

"Well, yeah, _that_ ," Stiles allowed. "But I meant, _where_ in the woods. Because I'm pretty sure if we were able to scale this cliff and then go north a little ways," he nodded to the steep incline that they were now angling away from. "We'd find a giant, creepy tree stump."

Scott stiffened, looking over at Stiles with furrowed brows. "The nemeton? We're that close? Are you sure? I don't remember being out this way before."

Stiles rubbed his arm, trying to dull the familiar, phantom prickling sensation that made him feel like someone was watching him. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure. We usually come in from the other side because it's closer to your place. The cliff's too steep to easily climb up or down and this area gets really boggy and yucky when it rains. Since no one ever informed _us_ that there was a party spot back there, there was never any reason to come down this way."

Scott smiled faintly at the way Stiles wouldn't let that go, but the expression was quickly swallowed in one of concern. "Okay, but... that's probably a coincidence, right?" he said hopefully.

"Maybe." Stiles grimaced. "If it's not, this is probably going to end up some kind of nasty ancient sacrifice shit again, and I am not down for that, so let's hope."

"Let's," Scott agreed.

On their left, Derek's back stiffened slightly, his head coming up. "Do you smell that?" he asked Scott. He was partially shifted and Stiles realized he hadn't noticed him change.

Scott paused, testing the air. He rolled his head, and when he looked back again, he had also shifted. He nodded. "I smell Megan, and the men from the van. Others too," he warned. "A _lot_ of others."

"There's another trail further that way, one that avoids the junk dump. It's been used recently. The scents are stronger there. It stinks." Malia's voice speaking, from behind him, nearly made Stiles jump out of his skin. Scott, however, seemed annoyingly unsurprised by her sudden reappearance.

Sheriff Stilinski unclipped the radio from his collar and tested it to make sure it was still working this far out. It was, and he used it to call for back up. It was going to take them at least a half hour to get here.

"We're going to wait for them?" Parrish asked a little dubiously.

The Sheriff cast a look at the group of teenagers around him and grimaced. Stiles could see the internal conflict on his face. His father did not want to lead them into a situation this potentially dicey, but that sense of duty was directly at war with his other protective instincts which were telling him that time was of the essence for the captives they were seeking.

"Everybody could be dead by that time," Stiles spoke up, voicing the side of the argument that he favored. "These people operate on a pattern, and their pattern is complete. They have everybody they need, if this _is_ some kind of sacrifice thing, we may not have any time to waste."

Mason's face set a little harder. "I'm going." he declared quietly, clearly prepared to go alone if he had to.

"Of course you are," Stiles gave the younger boy a distracted wave, sympathizing with the sentiment, but knowing from experience that there were more compelling arguments that could be made. "Look, let's be logical. These dudes are kidnapping _werewolves_ out of hotel parking lots in broad daylight. They're not going to be afraid of a handful of cops. Unless we can mobilize an actual SWAT team within the next few minutes, surprise is the best element we have. We could lose that if we hang around cooling our heels. Besides, if things go bad, we're better off if we don't have to hide our fangs." He turned and started walking onward again, as if the matter was settled in his mind.

"He's right," Stiles heard Scott say quietly from behind him. "We need to make sure they're okay. Maybe you all should stay here; I can go on ahead and check it out..."

"No, we should stick together as long as we can," John Stilinski's voice was low and determined. "As Stiles pointed out, these people _are_ kidnapping werewolves. Nobody should be on their own. We'll go in, _carefully_ , and see what we can see. Once we have an idea of who we're dealing with and where they are, we can go from there. We should avoid their trail and come up on wherever it leads from some point that they aren't as likely to be watching. You think you can find us that route?" He looked the question to all of them, apparently open to whatever their various enhanced senses and inhuman abilities could offer.

Scott nodded. He sent Derek and Malia off to flank them on either side to keep a look out for potential sentries, while he led the rest of the group around in a large, curving arc, attempting to suss out the best route from which to approach their quarry unseen.

 _o/o/o/o_

The scents were getting stronger now, setting Scott's senses ever more on alert. He didn't like how many of them there were. He didn't like that he didn't know how many of the people he could smell were enemies, and how many were victims.

Scott had pulled a little ahead of the others again, unconsciously moving more swiftly than he might have intended. Stiles stayed beside him this time, keeping up without much of a struggle. For a boy who could play video games for 12 hours straight and spend days in a row without leaving his house in the summer, Stiles had always been surprisingly nimble and at home out here in the woods.

"We're close," Scott whispered to his friend. He inhaled deeply and frowned. "Malia's right, it does stink," he added. The air was heavy with the stench of fear and uncertainty, and something else, something strange he couldn't place. Something fresh and green mingled with an astringent, bitter edge, like ozone. The latter scent flared, abruptly, growing suddenly more intense for a moment. It smelled like crushed grass and lightening, and yet seemed unrelated to the growing scent of the approaching storm.

Scott's head came up. "What was that? Did you smell that?"

 _o/o/o/o_

Ahead of her, Lydia could just see the backs of Scott and Stiles' shirts; denim and plaid, moving in unconscious tandem. It seemed to her they'd been like that for as long as she'd known them: always a little apart from everyone else, always together. _Tweedle-Dum_ and _Tweedle-Dumber_ , she'd once unkindly mentally dubbed them back in junior high, after they'd almost set the chemistry lab on fire, _again_. That now seemed like a lifetime ago. Who'd have thought she'd one day come to regard them as the kind of friends she was willing to fight and die for? Life was funny like that. So much could change, and yet some things remained the same.

The wind plucked at her skirt and riffled through her hair, but she barely noticed. Scott and Stiles' shirts blurred into the greens and browns of the woods around them as she felt something cold and clammy slither over her skin. Her ears ached like she was on an ascending airplane.

Lydia shivered. A familiar tugging sensation tightened in her chest, drawing her forward. It was as if a door had opened and suddenly an overwhelming rush of voices cried to her all at once.

 _Find us. Find us. Weep for us. Lay us to rest._

Her eyes unfocused and without realizing what she was doing, she started drifting off in a tangential line, away from the others.

Suddenly Kira was in front of her, and for a moment Lydia couldn't think, couldn't comprehend what was going on and why Kira was in her way. Then, suddenly, everything just... stopped. The tugging sensation fell away like a rope had been cut and she was aware of where she was and what was happening.

Kira was walking beside her now, saying her name and trying to nudge her back towards the group without being overly obvious about what she was doing. Being Kira, she failed at the attempted subtlety, but Lydia appreciated the effort anyway. She supposed the others were learning to keep track of her when it looked like she was starting to get one of her _feelings_. Her compulsion to find the dead could sometimes lead her to wander off unexpectedly. She didn't like that loss of control, but fighting it only made it worse.

Still, she'd not experienced a pull quite _that_ strong in some time. Not since the whole business with the Nemeton and the Darach's sacrifices.

"Are you okay?" Kira asked, and Lydia _really_ wished people would stop asking her that all the time.

Trying not to take her irritation out on Kira, who did not deserve it, Lydia gave her a tense little smile and quickly adjusted her course into a straight line again. "Fine. I'm fine," she said tersely, then sighed. "I just feel like I'm walking through a graveyard," she admitted in a murmur.

"There are people buried here?" Kira asked, giving the ground a wary glance.

Lydia shook her head, frowning in confusion. "No, not ... not _here._ " The sensation of death was still strong, but the persistent siren call that usually ended in her finding a body felt strangely disconnected now. Almost like it was _broken_ in some way. "It's like... they're here, but they're not here," she struggled to explain. "And no, I have no idea what that means either," she added tartly.

She could feel the presence of past death, but also the creeping warning of future death and it was setting her on edge. Voices whispered to her on every gust of the wind. She knew by now that it was useless to ask if anyone else could hear them. She knew by now that these murmuring moans meant that people were about to die. What she didn't know was _who._ The people they were hunting? The captives who had been taken ... or the people she was standing with right now? That scared her more than she wanted to admit. It scared her, because she had felt like this before Allison died and all the _knowing_ in the world hadn't done a damn bit of good when it came to saving her best friend.

Kira was quiet, withdrawing in the face of Lydia's prickly responses. She clearly wanted to do something to make things better, but wasn't sure how. It was easy to forget how shy the other girl actually was beneath her sunny disposition. She was so different from Lydia in so many ways, and yet Lydia realized she couldn't stand the thought of anything happening to her. Not her, or Scott, or Stiles, or Derek, or Mr. Stilinski, or Jordan, or Mason, or Liam, or ... okay, fine, or even Malia. She didn't want to lose any of them today. She didn't want it to be any of them for whom the voices whispered. _Please._

Lydia caught hold of Kira's arm. "Be careful," she begged, her gaze fixing on the other girl's startled face for a moment before sweeping around to encompass Mason, the Sheriff, Stiles, Scott and everyone else whether they were in visual range or not.

She couldn't tell them to go back, even if she wanted to, she knew that. They had a responsibility - to Liam, to Megan, to the others, whoever they were... and yet, even so, she found herself dreading every step forward.

"Please, everyone be careful. There's ... there's danger, here."

 _o/o/o/o_

"Not me, I swear," Stiles said automatically in response to Scott's question, then his brows furrowed. "Smell what?"

Scott shook his head distractedly, inhaling again. "I don't know, like... like... electricity, maybe?" he frowned, unable to describe it. "It's gone," he said a moment later, frown deepening.

A murmur of voices from behind them drew Stiles' attention back over his shoulder. He missed most of what had been said, but a sudden, serious note in Lydia's voice made him take notice of her last words. His gaze immediately fixed on his father, whose face had gone very grim.

 _There's danger here._

They all knew by now, Lydia didn't sense _danger_. Lydia sensed _death_.

"There's a cave, just ahead. People are inside, including Liam and the little girl."

Already on edge from the suddenly elevated levels of tension that had just descended upon them, Stiles literally jumped at the sound of Malia's voice, coming, again, from behind him.

"Holy mother of...! Can you _not_ keep doing that?" Hand to his chest, he spun around, fixing her with an exasperated expression.

Malia looked unrepentant, sparing him a wry smile that was mostly teeth.

Sheriff Stilinski pushed his way forward, trailed by his deputy. "Scott, Derek, Parrish, the four of us will go check out the cave."

Stiles frowned and looked around quickly, not having seen Derek in a few minutes. He turned almost directly into the older man who was now standing next to Scott, where Stiles could _swear_ he had _not_ been a minute ago.

" _Gah!_ Oh my God, does it run in the family?" he griped, back-pedaling a step. _Okay, so maybe he was just a little bit on edge. Creepy warnings of doom from trusted banshees tended to do that._

"The rest of you will stay here," John continued, immediately drawing his son's attention back to him. The Sheriff's tone brooked no disagreement. Naturally, Stiles started to disagree.

John preempted whatever his son was about to say by pressing his radio into Stiles' hands. "Officers Gregg and Brice have reached the access road and are on their way in. Others aren't far behind. They have our general coordinates, but they're not trackers. I need you to guide them in so they can find us."

"What happened to _we should stick together_?" Stiles argued.

" _As long as we can,_ " John reminded him of the rest of his previous injunction. "There are enough of us to form two groups. This is recon only. We're just going to take a closer look to see what we can see." His father looked meaningfully from him, to Mason and Lydia, and then back to him. "I need you to stay here," he repeated firmly.

Stiles' lips pressed into a mulish line, but he saw the look in his father's eyes and swallowed his retort. He reluctantly took the radio and gave a little nod.

"I should go with you," Malia was saying to Scott, but Scott was apparently on board with the Sheriff's plan, because he shook his head.

"No, stay with the others," he told her. His voice dropped a little. "Stay _close,_ okay? Keep alert; make sure no one unfriendly gets too close."

Malia was not great at reading between the lines, but Scott was not subtle, so it worked out. She got the glaringly obvious message that he wanted her to stay and guard the more breakable humans.

"Oh. All right," she finally agreed.

Scott looked over at Kira, who had caught on a lot faster and simply gave him a bright, reassuring little smile and a nod, her hand ghosting to the hilt of the katana she carried.

"Right. Fine. Go away already then," Stiles muttered. "We've got this covered." He waved the radio sardonically, although he wasn't really upset. Not _really._

He got it. Dad and Scott were worried about Lydia's warning too. They wanted Lydia, Mason and Stiles to be somewhere relatively away from any potential danger with Kira and Malia there to protect them in case things suddenly got ugly. Stiles couldn't argue with the logic of it, at least as far as keeping Lydia and Mason safe went, and yet he couldn't help feeling anxious for other reasons. He wondered as he watched Parrish, Derek, Scott, and his father disappearing into the trees: _who is going to protect you?_

For a few minutes there was a dead, dragging silence broken only by the wind in the trees and the rolling sound of distant thunder. Kira tried to make small talk, but no one else seemed inclined to reciprocate. Stiles paced and bounced on his feet, antsy and completely dissatisfied with the forced inaction. He quietly checked in with deputies Gregg and Brice on the radio half a dozen times in less than five minutes simply to have something to do. That was actually just as well, though, since both the two young officers appeared to be city-bred and were having some issues navigating the unfamiliar trail.

For once, Lydia seemed almost as wound up as Stiles. She paced uneasily, flinching and looking up anxiously at every new rumble of thunder.

The sun was completely obscured now, casting an uneasy sort of twilight over the woods. The air felt heavy, charged with the electricity of the approaching storm. Overhead, lightening flickered between the swollen, blue-grey clouds as if there were alien ships up there, engaged in battle.

Stiles had the radio volume turned down as low as he dared to keep from alerting anyone to their presence. It crackled in his hand, a new voice coming on and letting him know that deputy Easton and her partner Riggs had just reached the access road. Easton was one of the few deputies who had managed to survive and be around long enough for Stiles to know her, and vice-versa. Unlike the two new officers that had gotten there ahead of her, she recognized the younger Stilinski's voice and was more than a little surprised when he answered the radio.

 _"Stiles? Where's your father? What's happening out there?"_ her voice crackled through faintly on the weak connection.

Before Stiles could answer, a sharp intake of breath from Lydia made him whirl quickly around towards her

Lydia looked pale. She staggered a few feet forward, as if struggling with some strong compulsion. Mason caught her arm to steady her, but the banshee seemed largely unaware of his presence. "It's happening again," she murmured to no one in particular, her words almost slurring. "Oh God... I can't ... where are you? Where are you...?"

Stiles felt chills rush up his spine, because he knew Lydia wasn't speaking to them.

Lydia stumbled forward another blind step, then stopped abruptly, as if having slammed unexpectedly into a solid wall. Her eyes cleared as if whatever she had been feeling had ended as suddenly as it began. Pressing one hand against the nearest tree for support, she held the other to her chest, gasping and shaking her head as if trying to clear away a bad buzz.

Then, everything went to hell with remarkable speed.

From somewhere off in the direction in which Scott and the others had disappeared, there was the sharp, barking retort of gun fire. There were several echoing, single retorts first, followed by the rapid clatter of what could only be an automatic weapon.

Stiles spun back around in that direction, his stomach dropping to his toes at the same moment his heart lurched up into his throat. He released the radio button that he'd unconsciously been holding this whole time and Easton's worried voice came through the static, her sharp questions only barely registering in his mind.

 _"Stiles? Is that gunfire? We're on our way. What's happening? Talk to me, Stiles!"_

Stiles didn't have time to answer. With everyone's attention focused on the continuing, sporadic pop of nearby gunfire and the constant rustling of the wind in the trees obscuring all sound of other movement, they hadn't noticed the two armed men coming up silently from behind them.

Malia, her senses especially tuned to changes in her environment after years of living out here as a coyote, noticed the intruders only just in time. Partially shifting, as Scott had taught her to do, she jumped the nearest one with a snarl, clawing and knocking their gun aside. It went off, firing harmlessly into the earth with an echoing bang.

Lightening seared the sky overhead, followed by an echoing boom of thunder that sounded like a cannon amid the rest of the unfolding chaos.

Kira, katana drawn, was on the other man moments later, knocking him off balance before he could draw a bead on anyone. The man was forced to jump backward to stay out of reach of her slicing arcs and struggled to bring his gun to bear on her. The larger size of his assault rifle made it slightly more difficult for him to use it in such close quarters. The fact that both men were armed with military grade machine guns in the first place was more than a little worrisome.

A third gunman appeared and Lydia grabbed Mason, yanking the injured boy sideways to keep them both out of the line of fire. Trying to use the trees for cover, she grabbed a rock from the ground and hurled it at the man, Mason following suit.

Stiles dropped the radio, his hands closing around the first weapon he could find, which happened to be a fallen branch. He could tell just by hefting it that the wood was brittle and wouldn't hold together, but beggars couldn't be choosers, so he swung hard, breaking across the man's back as he moved to the side to avoid Lydia and Mason's well aimed stones.

The momentum of his wild movement and the loose carpet of leaves underfoot sent Stiles' feet out from under him, dropping him on his butt in a somewhat painful skid. The sprawl may have done nothing for his ego, but it saved his life. A bullet whizzed harmlessly over him, directly through the spot where he would have been standing.

Stiles scrambled backwards on his butt, trying to get to cover and find a more effective weapon at the same time. They were seriously outgunned and this was not going to end well.

Suddenly the hairs on his arms stood on end, the air crackling with electricity around them. The sensation crawled over his skin as if he'd been rubbing balloons on sweaters while simultaneously shuffling around in wool socks on carpet.

Lightning flashed directly overhead, arching down to meet the earth and for a moment he was struck by how weirdly random it was that lightening should choose to strike right here... until he realized it wasn't random at all, and it wasn't exactly normal lightening.

Kira gave a scream that was half roar, arms flung out as the lightning channeled directly into her. Stiles wasn't sure if it was an actual lightning strike that she had somehow called down or redirected to herself, or if it was just a manifestation of her reaching out and drawing in all the latent electricity already floating around in the storm-charged air. She probably didn't know either. Sometimes you did things in the heat of an emergency that you didn't even know you could do, as Stiles was well aware.

Whatever the particulars, it _looked_ as if a bolt of lightning struck Kira dead on, the young thunder kitsune's hair lifting, her body practically glowing for a moment as she captured and redirected the energy outward, the electricity bursting out of her in directed ribbons of smaller lightening that ignored her friends and zapped straight into the three men attacking them, blowing them backward.

Kira sagged to the earth like a puppet with her strings cut. Lydia and Mason caught her, supporting her as she recovered and hurrying her away. Stiles scrambled to feet, snatching up the radio and falling in with them. Malia took up the rear, covering their backs as they rushed through the trees. They were running blind, seeking a safety that didn't exist, but it was a better alternative to sticking around in a position that had already been discovered. Kira was still on her feet, but she clearly wasn't going to be able to do anything quite that momentous again anytime soon.

Stiles shouted breathlessly into the radio as they ran, telling whoever could hear him to hurry the hell up and warning them that there were an unknown number of heavily armed men out here up to no good. The thunder overhead was loud now and the echo of it reverberated in Stiles' chest.

Leaping over a log and scrambling down an embankment, Stiles nearly plowed straight into Derek, who was coming from the other direction. Throwing himself sideways at the last moment and doing an awkward sideways skip-hop that ended in a mild impact with a nearby tree, Stiles managed to trade one collision for another.

Pushing himself back off the offending tree, Stiles narrowly avoided a second collision with Lydia and Kira who had been directly behind him. The steadily increasing wind blew stinging grit into his eyes as and he blinked it away as he turned back towards the others.

The first thing Stiles noticed was that Derek was carrying a child. A little girl with dark hair and wide, frightened eyes rode on his right hip and he had one arm curled protectively around her. Derek's other hand was fisted in the back of Liam's shirt as he half carried, half dragged the unconscious younger werewolf along with them. Splashes of red from multiple healing bullet wounds painted Derek's clothing and skin. He was wearing his human face, but his eyes burned an electric wolf blue.

Parrish wasn't far behind, the deputy half helping, half herding along a group of nearly a dozen terrified men and women of wildly varying ages and states of dress that ranged in style from vagrant to hooker. Their eyes were strangely glassy. They looked confused and frightened, but were docile and compliant with Parrish's guidance in a way that was uncharacteristic for people in their situation. They had almost certainly been drugged with something, probably to make them easier for their captors to handle.

Mason pushed past Stiles, rushing to Liam and crouching beside him.

Stiles craned his neck, trying to see through the waving, tossing trees around them, but he did not find the other faces he sought. "Where's Scott? Where's my dad?" Stiles asked Derek urgently. "What happened?"

"They were using the caves to hold the prisoners. The girl was screaming. We went in," Derek summarized laconically. He shook his head, face deeply troubled. "We met ... heavy opposition." The way he said it indicated that it was a significant understatement.

"I don't know who these people are, but there are a _lot_ of them and they act military trained," Parrish put in. "Scott and Sheriff Stilinski covered our exit," he nodded to the ragged little group of prisoners they were protecting. It was obvious that cover would have been needed to get this many semi-responsive people away safely. The fact that the four of them had managed so much against such poor odds was more than a little amazing, really. "They should be right behind us," Parrish added with a worried glance over his shoulder.

Only they weren't, and Stiles could still hear the sporadic pop of gunfire in the near distance. The knot in his stomach refused to release. He turned back in time to see Derek stagger sideways. The werewolf pressed his shoulder against a tree for support, briefly closing his eyes as if gathering strength.

"We have to keep moving, we need to get these people out of here," Derek said through his teeth, pushing away from the tree again and pressing doggedly forward with his two charges.

It was then that Stiles realized Derek was more injured than he'd first assumed. He'd gotten used to werewolves being able to take a few bullets and keep going, but Derek was clearly in bad shape. He limped as he moved, struggling to support Liam and Megan's weight in a way that his supernatural strength should have made a non-issue. Most of the visible bullet wounds to the older man's body were already in various stages of healing, but one to his shoulder and another to his thigh were still oozing a sickly looking black blood. The shoulder wound was partially obscured by the dark Henley Derek was wearing, but the fabric had torn from the gunshot and Megan's grip on the other side of his shirt pulled the gap open enough for Stiles to see the ugly black and purple veins snaking their way outward from the wound.

 _Wolfsbane. These men had had wolfsbane bullets. Oh, fuck._

"Call Deaton," Stiles told Lydia as the small group moved forward much slower than was probably healthy for their chances of escape. "Tell him we're going to need him."

"Derek, are any of the bullets still lodged? Do I need to try to get one? Is Scott hit?" Stiles asked with urgent intensity as he scrambled along beside the werewolf, not paying much attention to where they were going in his need for answers. He knew from experience they would need a sample of the aconite strain used in order to counteract the poison.

"What about ... what about my dad?" he couldn't help adding. His father wouldn't be affected by wolfsbane, but just getting shot would do plenty of damage.

Teeth still grit, Derek shook his head, understanding what Stiles was asking. "Scott and your dad are okay, or at least, they _were_. There was only one guy using anti-werewolf rounds. I took him out and I have one of the bullets. I'll be fine," he assured with a grunt, struggling to heave Liam over a log.

Derek would never actually say it, but Stiles could read between the lines enough to guess that the older werewolf had probably put himself between the gunman and the others, intentionally taking the hits rather than letting anyone else get hurt. Stiles was insanely grateful to him for that, but behind them he could still hear sound of fighting. Clearly, the bad guys had plenty of normal bullets to spare.

The radio in Stiles' hand crackled with messages and position reports from the host of cops now flooding into the woods. Help was coming, but whether they would survive to see it was the question. It sounded like Easton and Riggs had nearly caught up with the first two officers and they were honing in on the sound of the distant fighting.

There was a shout from behind them and a sudden, much nearer burst of gunfire.

"Down! Get Down!" Parrish yelled, struggling to get the sluggishly responsive people he was protecting to comply as bullets whizzed over their heads. Lydia helped him, grabbing a confused looking old woman and pushing her head down.

Malia streaked past Stiles, disappearing into the trees with a snarl, charging the source of the gunfire behind them. Kira was hot on her heels, sword in hand as she vaulted over a fallen tree and disappeared from sight.

"Kira! Malia!" Derek called after them.

Stiles paused just long enough to turn to Lydia and press the radio he was still carrying into her hands. "Reinforcements are on their way; they're 10, maybe 15 minutes out," he said quickly.

Lydia gripped the radio tightly, her knuckles going white. "Wait, Stiles..." she whispered.

Stiles didn't wait. He turned and took off, running full tilt through the trees after Kira and Malia.

"Stiles!" Derek and Parrish both shouted after him, but he ignored them. Stiles was confident that Megan and the other freed prisoners were in good hands. There wasn't anything useful he could do for them by staying and he couldn't leave Scott and his dad behind, or let Kira and Malia run off to fight alone; not with Lydia's warning still pumping slushy ice around in his stomach.

Stiles tried to keep up with the girls, but they vanished into the trees ahead of him at an inhuman speed he could not match. There was a growling and crashing sound from somewhere nearby, making him think someone had found whoever had been shooting at them, but the woods and the wind played tricks with his ears. He tried to head towards the struggle, but only found more trees.

Utterly turned around, Stiles honed in on the sound of another rattle of nearby gunfire and pressed towards it. He picked his way quickly across the rough terrain, hopping rocks and ducking low hanging branches. The growing roar of the wind and the rustle a of a million restless leaves in the branches made him uncomfortably blind to anyone's approach, but at the same time it also hid his own movements from anyone else who was out here.

A wolf howled somewhere ahead, the sound carried on the wind and echoing through the trees. It seemed to throb in Stiles' blood, reverberating in his chest like the rolling thunder. _Scott._ He pushed himself to run faster.

The ground became rockier and slanted sharply upward, the trees thinning and giving way. The first fat, heavy rain drops were just beginning to fall as he reached the caves. Small, dark circles appeared on the stones under his feet and the leaves around him began to dance frenetically.

Stiles emerged from the woods on the upper slope of the hill into which the caves were set, giving him a clear view of the events unfolding below. The scene that met him was almost surreal. He could see at least seven or eight armed men in dark colored gear engaged in various stages of pitched battle around the mouth of the cave opening. The men wore body armor and that, combined with their assault weapons leant them a distinctly paramilitary look.

Sheriff Stilinski crouched behind the cover of a large boulder a dozen yards downhill to Stiles' left, laying down suppressive fire in an effort to discourage the Kevlar-clad attackers from coming that way in pursuit of their escaping prisoners. Further ahead, Scott, Kira and Malia were all involved in separate melee skirmishes with the armed gunmen.

Malia has gone full coyote, something Stiles didn't think she'd done in quite a while. Leaping and dancing about on four legs, she bit and clawed viciously, her pale fur spotted red with both her own blood and that of the men whom she was attacking. She was holding her own, but the men's body armor was doing as good a job of repelling fangs and teeth as it did bullets.

Kira was dodging and spinning and actually _slicing_ bullets out of the air, which was pretty damn cool, but her movements were slowing even as Stiles watched. She was bleeding badly from wounds to her leg and side. Stiles didn't fully understand how the Kitsune thing worked, but he knew that while she was capable of surviving things that would kill a normal human, Kira didn't seem to possess the same speed of healing that the werewolves did.

Scott was fighting two men at once and looked like he was attempting to find a way to get to Kira while simultaneously trying to prevent their attackers from gaining enough cohesion to rush the Sheriff's position. The young alpha was bloodied from multiple bullet wounds and Stiles could only hope that Derek had been right and they were all the normal kind.

Their little group was significantly outnumbered, and even in the few short seconds it took to take everything in, Stiles could see that whoever their enemy was, Parrish had been right. They weren't just thugs with big guns. They were skilled and well trained. They knew what they were doing and how to hold their own against opponents with inhuman advantages.

Stiles' attention was abruptly drawn away by a flash of movement off to his left amid the trees. He carefully edged around the tangle of trees behind which he hid until he could get a better look. The rain was starting to pick up speed, and Stiles squinted to see through the haze it created.

Someone was creeping around on the hill directly below him, only about half a dozen yards away. Unnoticed in the chaos, the man carefully maneuvered himself into position and propped his weapon against a rock, squinting through the rain as he drew a bead... directly on Sheriff Stilinski's back.

Shouting a warning, Stiles rushed the man, tackling him bodily just as he fired. The shot went wild as they hit the ground, the momentum of his attack and the steep angle of the hill sending both of them tumbling down the incline together in a jumble of arms and, elbows and knees.

They jarred to a halt against an outcropping of rock near the bottom. Stiles landed on the bottom, the bigger man's weight crushing painfully against him. He felt like the world was still spinning, but his groping hand closed around a rock and he slammed it up against the other man's head, more out of instinct than anything else. The rock connected, and pretty solidly too, but the man absorbed the blow and retaliated by nailing the teen with a harsh punch to the gut.

Stiles felt like someone had literally knocked the breath out of his lungs. His chest seized and for a moment, he couldn't breathe or move. Rain stung his face as he gaped like a gutted fish.

The man appeared to have lost his assault rifle at some point during their tumble, but a serrated combat knife was suddenly in his hand as if by magic. It sliced quickly and decisively down towards the semi-paralyzed boy, but before it could find its mark, the man's head suddenly jerked back and he slumped limply to the side.

Regaining himself, Stiles flailed at the man above him, shoving the deadweight off and scrambling up to his knees to find his father looking at him with worried eyes, the gun in his hand still leveled at the man he'd just shot.

"Stiles, get out of here!" John told him, his eyes serious and filled with urgency as he reloaded his weapon, slapping in what Stiles knew to be the only spare magazine he carried. "Go!"

The front wave of the storm reached them. Rain began to sluice down in earnest, the heavens opening with a muted roar and pouring forth in a nearly blinding torrent.

One of their adversaries, a man with salt and pepper hair that looked more pepper than salt under the darkening flow of the rain, took advantage of the Sheriff's distraction and went for him. Scott tore himself away from his current fight, jumping the man just in time and bearing him down to the earth.

A second man intent on the same goal made it through, but apparently didn't notice Stiles, still half crouched next to the dead man beside him. Or, perhaps he did notice and simply made the mistake of thinking the unarmed teen wasn't a threat. If that were the case, Stiles proved him wrong. Lashing out, he knocked the man's legs out from under him, sending him to the ground. The Sheriff quickly clubbed the man across the head with the butt of his weapon, stunning him.

Stiles had just a moment to get a good look at the way the man was kitted out. The military vibe was strong, emphasized by the body armor he'd noticed before and a utility belt bristling with grenades, survival equipment, climbing hooks and a host of other things Stiles didn't have time to notice or identify.

Two sharp gun blasts yanked Stiles' attention away. He looked up to see Scott tangled up with the pepper haired man. From this angle, Stiles could see a large, vaguely web shaped scar that spanned one side of the man's neck and spread up his jaw to his cheek. Scarface had a hand gun pressed into Scott's gut and had just discharged the weapon into him, twice.

Scott's body jerked, red blossoming across his soaked shirt. The young werewolf's face creased in pain, but the injury didn't slow him down. He didn't bother trying to knock the man's weapon away, instead grabbing Scarface's head between his hands. One good twist and Scott could easily have snapped his neck, but of course, he didn't. Instead he head-butted the man, dropping him unconscious to the ground.

A yowl of pain and fury drew everyone's attention across the clearing.

Kira was down. She lay on the ground, unmoving. Malia hunkered protectively over her, rain slicking her pelt and making it stick up in points. Her eyes blazed and she tossed her head, growling and snapping at the three men pressing in on them.

Scott ran to them with a roar of worried, protective fury, his presence forcing the men to draw back. Stiles followed, dropping to Kira's side and pressing his fingers against her neck, his heart hammering. Her skin was slippery and his fingers clumsy with haste, but after a few moments of agonizing searching, he managed to find a strong, steady pulse and he felt relief quiver through him.

John appeared by his son's side, whipping off his jacket and pressing it to the bleeding wound in Kira's stomach. He grabbed Stiles' hands and pushed them down over the wet fabric, wordlessly directing him to apply pressure before he had to disappear again, moving quickly off the right, gun in hand.

Stiles hunkered down as low as he could, keeping pressure on Kira's injuries. Malia still stood protectively over Kira's legs, her body shuddering as she breathed. Up close, Stiles could see all the dark gashes beneath her fur that weren't mending. The amount of damage she had taken seemed to be overwhelming her ability to heal and she was barely holding her feet.

Things were not going well.

Above the howl of the storm, Stiles thought he heard distant shouts coming from the woods behind them. A gunshot cracked three times in rapid succession. Alarm filled him over the possibility that trouble had again caught up with those in the escape party, but then across the clearing, he saw his father do something curious. Despite having a limited supply of ammo, the Sheriff deliberately fired two quick shots uselessly straight up into the air. It took Stiles a moment to realize that the action was a response, and that the previous shots were a signal. The other BHPD officers had arrived and were trying to close on their location.

Their opponents seemed to understand this as well. Realizing the tide would soon turn against them and perhaps unaware of how many reinforcements were or weren't on their way, the armed men started falling back towards the cave, which Stiles thought that was odd, because surely they would only be trapped in there ... unless of course, there was another exit somewhere.

He straightened a little, squinting to see through the rain and looking around as if he could spot a likely place for any potential back exits. To be honest, the size of caves' exterior didn't suggest that it was very deep or extensive, but he supposed there was always the chance that a lot of it was hidden down beneath the ground.

Over the roar of the wind and rain, Stiles didn't hear the man coming up behind him until a strong arm closed around his neck and the nauseatingly familiar sensation of a gun barrel pressed into his temple. Stiles couldn't see much from this position, but in his periphery vision, he saw and recognized the pattern of scars scrawled across the man's neck and jaw. It was the same guy he'd seen Scott fight a few minutes ago. He must have regained consciousness. _Wonderful._

Scarface tried to tug him upright, but Stiles resisted, unwilling to release his hold on Kira. The arm around his neck tightened, applying practiced pressure to the arteries on the sides of his neck and making Stiles' world go abruptly hazy.

The next thing Stiles knew, he was on his feet with his back pressed against the chest of the man holding him. He had no clear memory of how he'd gotten there and his knees felt weak and strange as he tried to support himself. He mustn't have lost much time, because not much else seemed to have changed, but the world was yellow and edged in black, dark spots dancing amid the rain.

Malia lunged at the man holding him with a growl, but she was slowed by her injuries and Scarface was unusually fast for a human. The gun at Stiles' head snapped away long enough to shoot the coyote at point blank range. The bullet caught Malia in the chest and she crumpled across Kira's legs.

It all happened much too quickly for Stiles' blood-deprived brain to even register what was happening until it was done. He cried out, unable to form an articulate sound around his dizzy outrage and horror. The gun was back at his head again, but Stiles barely noticed.

Kira and Malia lay bloodied at his feet and Stiles' reeling mind screamed at him that they were dead. They were dead like Allison was dead and it was his fault. _It was always his fucking fault._

Stiles couldn't breathe for reasons that had nothing to do with the arm around his throat. He stumbled along numbly as Scarface dragged him away.

"Stay back!" the man holding him barked the warning harshly, voice raised to be heard over the pounding rain.

The sound was loud in Stiles' ear, but he barely registered the words or their purpose. He twisted and strained in the man's grasp, his neck craning as he struggled to keep looking back at his injured friends. He was rewarded by a glimpse of Malia's chest rising and falling in pained gasps and Kira starting to stir, weakly. Her trembling fingers slid into Malia's fur and held on tightly.

 _They were alive._

Relief made him dizzy and Stiles nearly tripped over his own feet as Scarface pushed him roughly along, dragging him towards the cave. The man squeezed Stiles' neck and dug the barrel of the gun into his temple hard enough bruise, apparently irritated that the boy did not seem to be very concerned about potentially getting his head blown off.

Stiles stopped struggling to turn around in his captor's grasp and cooperated, mostly because he didn't want the man's attention to shift back to Kira and Malia. They were alive, and given what he'd seen in the past, he had every reason to hope they'd recover fully given a little time, but neither was going to be ready for action again anytime soon and that meant right now they were vulnerable. Best to keep the bad guys' attention away from them, then.

"Make no mistake, I _will_ kill him," Scarface warned, and something in his tone said he wasn't bluffing. He also wasn't talking to Stiles. They'd reached the mouth of the cave, and Scarface stood just inside the opening, holding Stiles in front of him like a human shield. Which, Stiles realized belatedly, was exactly what he was.

Scott and his father both stood several yards away, watching, bodies wary and tense; unable to make a move that wouldn't result in getting Stiles killed.

"Clean up fall back! Now! Full scrub!" Scarface barked the words out, loudly, like they were an order of some kind. Stiles guessed that giving orders probably meant this man was in charge.

"Gage? What about ..." a voice called out questioningly from somewhere deeper in the cave behind them.

"Secure our retreat. Atlas protocol," Scarface, whose name must actually be Gage, cut the other man off curtly, his attention never wavering from the standoff in which he was engaged. "Our friends here aren't going to do anything stupid, right?" this last was directed meaningfully at the Sheriff, who was approaching them cautiously, his weapon drawn.

Rain was running down John's face, slicking his hair to his head and plastering his tan uniform to his body, but his hand was steady with years of training as he kept his weapon leveled in the direction of the man holding a gun to his son's head.

"You don't want to do this," John warned. "Let him go."

Two of Gage's men took up flanking positions on opposite sides of the cave mouth, their automatics trained on Scott and the Sheriff. They spaced themselves so that even with werewolf speed, it would be impossible to take all three of them out without one or both of the Stilinski's getting killed.

"No, I don't want to," Gage agreed coolly. "But I will if you make me. So here's how this is going to go. You are both going to stay right where you are, and everybody gets to walk away from this. Or, you can try something, I'll blow his brains out, these gentlemen will shoot you, you'll maybe kill some of us too, and everyone will have a generally more shitty day than they have to."

Dark figures appeared through the curtain of rain. The armed men who were still in the field and not taking part in the stand-off at the cave mouth withdrew swiftly past Gage and Stiles. They disappeared into the cave as Gage and the other two men covered their retreat.

Stiles noticed that several of the men were supporting, or in a few cases outright dragging, their injured companions. A dark, stippling burn marred one of the unresponsive men dragged past him and Stiles recognized him as one of the people Kira had downed with electricity when they were first attacked. Another body that passed was that of the man his father had shot. That man was obviously dead, which led Stiles to suspect that the "full scrub" clean up Gage had ordered meant that they left no one behind, regardless of their condition.

"Why are you doing this?" Scott asked, his gaze locked on Gage with a quiet intensity, his body tense as he warily tracked the finger on the gun to his best friend's head. His wolf still rode on the surface and his eyes burned a visible red, even through the sheeting rain that separated them. "Why take those people?"

"Why not?" Gage responded simply, evading the question with a mirthless smile. "So, you're an alpha," he added conversationally, perhaps intentionally diverting and controlling the conversation. "Mite young, aren't you? I take it the little wolf was yours?" Stiles felt the man give a put-upon sigh against his back. "This is exactly why I told you you shouldn't have grabbed a young one," he called out, clearly speaking to some of the people now behind him. "They're always missed."

"Yeah? Well maybe you should have thought of that before you started kidnapping little girls then, buddy," Stiles shot at him, remembering all at once that these were the same people that had taken Anna. The same people that had killed her. His stomach burned hotly and he shifted his weight, trying to see how firm Gage's grip really was.

The answer was, _very firm_. Gage seemed to know exactly what Stiles was doing and his arm tightened, threatening to cut off both oxygen and blood flow once more. The last of Gage's men disappeared behind him into the cave, completing their withdrawal. Carefully, Gage started back up again, pulling Stiles with him.

"Necessary evil," he said carelessly, "and no offense," Gage gave the Sheriff a mocking smile as they retreated backward over the inky threshold of the cave. "But I'm a lot less worried about the wrath of the local cops than I am about that of the local werewolf packs. Interesting, that you're working together."

"Who _are_ you?" Stiles demanded, wondering at how much they seemed to know. The pounding rain cut off suddenly as he was dragged through a curtain of wet, overhanging greenery and into the cave itself. The roar of the storm was abruptly diminished, like someone cranking down a radio. The cave was dark and he blinked, struggling to adjust.

Gage didn't answer. The other two men standing guard followed them inside, also walking backwards so as not to turn their backs on a threat. Around the dark outlines of their heads and shoulders, Stiles could see Scott and his father warily follow them in at a cautious distance, ducking through the hanging vines over the entrance.

Stiles more than expected Gage to tell them to stop and warn them to stay outside, but he didn't, and something about that worried Stiles, a lot.

"There's no way out of here," John said in reasonable, calming tones, although his weapon stayed up in front of him. "I called in county patrol. There's over a dozen officers out there, converging on this place as we speak."

Stiles knew his father was lying through his teeth, and had to give him props for being able to do it with such a straight, sincere expression.

Gage didn't respond, continuing to back down the tunnel with Stiles, the two men between them acting as an extra buffer of protection that ensured neither the Sheriff nor Scott could get to Stiles before Gage could drop him. The further down the passage they went, the dimmer the watery grey light from the cave mouth became. The yellow-white glow of artificial camp lights took its place.

"This doesn't have to be a last stand," John continued in the same, reasonable tones, still trying to talk them down. "Nobody wants that. Let the boy go, lay down your weapons, and no needs to get hurt. Don't let anybody take that chance off the table for you. You don't _have_ to die today." His gaze shifted from one face to the next among the men he could see, looking for any weak links to pry against.

"You're good," Gage appraised with a distinct lack of concern. "But don't worry, we won't."

Stiles could feel the presence of others around them as the tunnel widened into a slightly larger cavern. Craning his head around as much as the grip on his neck allowed, Stiles realized with a jolt of surprise that they had quite literally hit a dead end. The cave ended abruptly, here, in this vaguely oblong cavern. Gage's men were all about them now; a wary knot of weapons and grim faces that managed to look threatening even while dripping wet. Up close, he couldn't help thinking they looked like extras from an action movie, made up to look like non-specific mercenary soldiers. They wore no insignia or recognizable uniforms, but they definitely acted like a unit.

Stiles saw that those too wounded to be conscious or mobile were propped up against the outer walls of the cave. He counted five down and maybe around seven still on their feet, including Gage. Most of the men were bleeding and cut up to some extent, even those still standing. Except for the one guy slumped against the wall with a bullet in his head, they'd probably all live. This was perhaps partially an indication of their skill, but, Stiles knew, it was also a product of the fact that Scott strongly emphasized _not_ killing within his pack. Privately, Stiles thought the world would be no worse off for the loss of these particular men, but he understood why Scott didn't want to be the one to start making those decisions. It was too easy to slide down that slope once you started and they'd seen far too many examples of people who put a pitifully low premium on the lives of others. _Too bad there weren't any convenient high places around for the bad guys to accidentally tumble from all on their own. That always worked in Disney movies._

Blood on the floor and lighter colored bullet marks scaring the dark cave walls spoke to the fight that had already taken place in here. Stiles marveled that Scott and the others had managed to get anyone out of here alive the first time. He was even more stumped as to why on earth the mercenaries had bothered to _return_ here.

The cave wasn't very deep. He could still see the small shape of the entrance from here, a jagged patch of daylight overhung with greenery. There was no other way out that he could see. What did these men hope to accomplish by trapping themselves in here, even with a hostage? Were they some kind of fanatics who preferred death to capture? Were they intending to turn this into some kind of Alamo-style blood bath?

Stiles could tell that was exactly what his father feared from the tight way he gripped his weapon and the tension radiating through his shoulders as he edged carefully closer, closing the gap between them now that Gage had stopped moving.

"That's far enough," Gage warned when John and Scott were still a good twenty yards or so away. "I'd stop there, if I were you. You strike me like a military man, Officer. Know anything about demolition?" he asked.

Stiles felt Gage move his head, but couldn't tell what he was indicating from his position. Both his father and Scott could, however, and he followed their gaze to something he hadn't noticed before. There were several small blocks of what looked like C4 set into the walls of the cave on either side of the passage, about two thirds of the way down between the cave mouth and the larger chamber where the mercenaries stood. Wires trailed from the blocks. It may not have actually been C4, Stiles was no expert, but it was clearly _some_ kind of explosive. If he'd had any doubts about that, his father's reaction would have set the question to rest.

Clearly, John _did_ know enough about explosive munitions to recognize the charges for what they were. His face went a shade grimmer, if that were possible. He stopped moving, his keen gaze darting around in search of any other such threats, but he didn't retreat.

Stiles really wished he would. Scott and his father were still a good four or five yards from the charges, but they were a lot closer to them than the mercenaries were. Stiles' mouth went dry. Trapping themselves inside a cave rigged to blow seemed to indicate that suicide was definitely on the crazy menu for these people. Was this Gage's "Atlas Protocol"? Were they going to metaphorically bring the world down on their shoulders?

"Pressure plate," Gage ordered cryptically. A man with a shaved head appeared a moment later, placing a flat, circular object on the ground in front of them. Gage pushed Stiles forward until he was standing on it, then nodded at Baldy.

"Don't move, kid," Gage warned, loud enough for Scott and his father to hear. "You're standing on a pressure trigger. You move off it, you even twitch too much, and those explosives will detonate and bring this whole place down."

Stiles froze, his muscles seizing up as being told not to move ensured that he was immediately gripped with a strong desire to do just that. "Uh... this is a really bad idea. Like, really bad. I am not good at the being still thing," he protested nervously. "Ask anybody."

"I think you can manage," Gage said dryly as he carefully released his grip on Stiles, lowering his weapon and stepping backward. It was unnecessary, Stiles couldn't run now. No way even supernatural speed would have enabled him to get from here to the cave mouth before the explosives went off.

Stiles raised his arms out from his sides a little an unconscious attempt to increase his balance as he gazed worriedly up the tunnel to where Scott and his father still stood, watching with frustrated helplessness.

"Stiles?" John said quietly, edging forward another cautious step closer to his son, and to the explosives.

"Don't!" Stiles said in alarm, holding his arms out towards them. "Good God, back up! I'm fine. You should wait outside."

"Stiles," it was Scott this time. Neither of them were moving away. _Why the hell weren't they moving away? Couldn't they see there was nothing they could do here but get killed?_

"Back _up_!" Stiles shouted, anger and panic warring in his churning gut. The pressure plate under his feet was at a slight angle and he struggled not to shift at all as he balanced on it. "Just get out, damn it! You're not doing any good here!"

Neither man moved and Stiles wanted to stomp in frustration, except for the part where that was a really bad idea.

"No, nobody leaves," Gage ordered coolly from behind Stiles, even though there didn't look to be any danger of that happening, anyway. "You, officer, stay where you are. You, werewolf, come here. _Slowly._ "

"No!" Stiles shook his head vehemently, twisting around as much as he dared to try and see Gage. "Just let them go!" He would have stepped off the trigger and brought the cave down on them right now, if Scott and his dad weren't still in the danger zone. Maybe Gage suspected as much.

Out of his periphery vision, Stiles noticed that Baldy was holding something in his hand, and it wasn't a gun. It looked to Stiles like another triggering mechanism. The man held the handle tightly, the trigger fully depressed. He would, quite literally, bet his life that it was a dead-man's switch; a secondary detonator that could be used to set off the explosives if something went wrong ... or at any random point these whack-jobs decided it would be fun to bring a ton of rock down on everyone's heads.

"Scott, don't!" Stiles protested as Scott moved carefully down the tunnel towards them, hands out to the side in a non-threatening gesture. "Just get out!" he pleaded.

Scott caught his eyes and shook his head. _You know I can't,_ his gaze said, clear as words. _You know you wouldn't._

"Scott?" Sheriff Stilinski said in worried tones, shifting unhappily where he stood. Clearly, he didn't like this much more than Stiles did.

"It's fine. Everything's going to be fine," Scott said quietly, his gaze never leaving Stiles as he moved towards them.

Stiles wanted to believe that, but _fine_ seemed like a pretty tall order right now.

"All right, that's far enough," Gage told Scott when he was just inside where the larger part of the cavern started, still a good couple of yards away from Stiles. At least four men had their weapons trained on him.

Catching Scott's gaze, Stiles darted his eyes meaningfully sideways, trying to get Scott to notice the man with the dead-man's switch. Scott caught his drift and gave a minute nod.

"I know you're probably thinking that at this range you can take us," Gage told Scott from behind Stiles. "But keep in mind that you and your friend here still won't make it out in time. The cop either. But you just stay there and don't twitch until you're told and you'll be fine. After all, we still need a werewolf," he added with an unreadable smile.

Stiles felt his whole understanding of the situation abruptly shift with those words. He frowned, mind whirling. Gage wasn't talking like someone about to choose death over defeat. He was talking like someone who was still intending to continue his mission, even if Stiles couldn't figure out _how._

"Is it ready?" Gage said to someone that Stiles couldn't see. He heard them moving around behind him but couldn't turn enough to see what they were doing.

"Yeah, but the timing's gonna be tight. We can probably make it in two cycles, but if the cops are as close as he says, that cool-down period is gonna be a bitch," someone else responded, sounding unhappy. "How we gonna decide who goes first?" There was just the hint of a challenge in the question.

"No need, we'll go together. We'll only need cycle," Gage replied.

"Not dragging a bunch of bodies we won't," the other man countered.

"Like I said, we'll only need one," Gage shot back, his voice laden with meaning. Clearly, he did not intend to be slowed down by their injured comrades and his tone dared anyone to object. No one did.

Stiles didn't understand, but he didn't like where this was going. If these men had some kind of escape plan, it might mean that blowing the tunnel would be diversionary rather than suicidal.

A sharp crack of thunder from outside reverberated through the cave, sounding eerily like a gunshot and causing a couple of the men to tense and mutter. Stiles jerked at the sound and then quickly struggled to go very still, breathing harshly as he maintained his position.

His gaze shifted over Scott's shoulder and caught his father's eyes. "Dad. Back up, _please_ ," he pleaded, his eyes stinging unexpectedly as he willed his father to listen to him with every fiber of his being.

He was peripherally aware of Baldy shooting him a sharp look. Clearly, they hadn't put together his relationship to the older man until now. Stiles didn't care. He ignored them, focused on his father. " _Please._ " His voice trembled just a little and his eyes begged his dad to trust him.

That, perhaps, was what did it; because John did trust his son. To Stiles' great relief, the Sheriff eased backwards several careful paces. It wasn't as far as Stiles would have liked, but it was something.

"I'm not leaving, Stiles," he said quietly, as if to make sure Stiles understood that he'd work with him, but not leave him; never that. His words were calm and forceful, but Stiles heard the faint catch in his voice. "Everything's going to be okay, kiddo."

Only, it wasn't.

Stiles' attention was caught by a sudden flare of unnaturally green light from somewhere behind him and the hair on the back of his neck and arms prickled as if in response to a sudden change in the air. Scott had been busy sizing up the armed men arrayed around him and Stiles, but the light caught his attention too. He started to shift to the side, as if trying to see what was happening around the bodies between him and whatever it was.

Then, everything abruptly went to hell for the second time that day.

 _o/o/o/o_

Rain stung Lydia's eyes and plastered her hair to her shoulders. She supported Liam on one side, Mason on the other as they helped him stumble along.

Liam doubled over and lurched to his knees without warning, retching violently into the muddy brush. Mason curled an arm around him supportively to keep him upright and Lydia placed a reassuring, if distracted hand on his back. She took the moment to steal a glance back over her shoulder, even though she could see nothing but rain and trees.

Suddenly the rain became ice, a thousand little pinpricks of pain assaulting her skin. An eerie chill slid through her, like someone was rolling away the stone from a mass grave. She exhaled as if she'd been punched, and it felt like her breath should have fogged on the suddenly freezing air. Everything slowed down and for a moment it was as if she was aware of each and every raindrop as they fell.

 _It was happening again._

Voices babbled at her in the drumming of the rain and the roar of the wind like a tidal wave of sound and sensation. So many voices, some speaking in languages she couldn't even understand.

One of the voices sounded a little like Mason, calling her name in alarm, but she barely registered that. She was running, her high-heeled boots catching and sinking into the muddy loam. She pushed her way through a tangle of vines, tree branches thick with wet, dripping leaves smacking into her as she batted them aside. Pressure built up inside her like steam in a boiling tea kettle, making her chest constrict and her breathing shallow.

Thunder cracked overhead, sharp and echoing. It sounded like the sky was breaking.

A clawing sense of deja-vu flooded her, mingled with horror. _No! No! No!_

The thunder cracked again. The earth shook.

Lydia screamed.

 _o/o/o/o_

Two men in the soaked, tan uniforms of the BHPD appeared in the mouth of the cave, officers Gregg and Brice, most likely, although they were little more than silhouettes to Stiles at this distance. Both men automatically drew their weapons upon seeing the situation before them.

The mercenaries tensed up at the sudden movement. Several guns swiveled away from Scott, aiming up the passage towards the new threat instead.

As long as he lived, Stiles would never be entirely certain about several of the things that happened next. It all unfolded very quickly and his memories of the event later were clouded by the head injuries he was about to sustain.

The air reverberated with a sharp crack. Perhaps one of mercenaries thought they were being threatened and had fired an ill-advised warning shot. Perhaps it was one of the deputies who had done so, although Stiles found it hard to believe they'd have taken a shot _around_ his father in such tight quarters. Maybe it hadn't been a gunshot at all, but merely another loud snap of thunder. Whatever it was, it was the spark that touched off the powder keg.

The already tense situation immediately dissolved into chaos, no one sure who was shooting and everyone reacting. The cave rang with a rapid flurry of gunshots, the sound painfully loud in the enclosed space. A body hit the floor beside him.

Maybe Stiles accidentally stumbled off the pressure plate in the chaos. Maybe Baldy was hit, or simply lost his grip on the dead-man's switch. Stiles could never be sure. All he remembered was a bright flash and a billowing cloud of debris and green fire rushing towards him. There was something off about that, something that seemed somehow _not right_ about the surge of green flame that roiled out towards them along the stone walls of the cave, as if the rocks were drenched in gasoline. It sparkled and shook, more like electricity than flame. He had the fleeting impression that the mercenaries were also surprised; that somehow, things were not going according to plan.

The world seemed to go weirdly silent for a moment as the leading edge of the pressure wave ruptured his ear drums. In that strange instant of dead calm, he was aware of a distant, high pitched wail. It shivered through him, more feeling than sound.

Somewhere in the distance, Lydia was screaming.

The green flame rushed over him, strangely not at all hot. Behind it rolled the dark, expanding cloud of debris carried on the primary blast wave. He realized in an almost detached way, that he was about to die.

Then, suddenly, Scott was there, between him and the roiling cloud of death. Moving faster than Stiles had thought was possible, even for him, Scott tackled him, curling around his friend in a tight bear hug. He slammed into Stiles with enough jarring force to send the both of them flying backwards, away from the explosion. The impact wave caught up with them moments later, slamming Scott in the back and adding extra, brutal force to their wild tumble.

Time didn't slow, if anything, it sped up, leaving Stiles with only fragmentary memories of what followed.

He remembered Scott's arms around him. He remembered Scott clutching his head and pushing it down, tucking him protectively into his chest. He remembered Scott hunching around him like a human shield as they were thrown through the air. He remembered whirling green light. He remembered falling. He _didn't_ remember hitting the cave wall behind them like they should have. He didn't remember any kind of impact at all. Only falling.

That was all, just _light_ , and _sound_ , and _Scott_ , and _falling_.

Maybe time did slow, then, because the falling seemed to last much, much longer than it should have. Everything was black and confused. The scent of crackling ozone and crushed grass filled his ringing head along with a sickening sense of weightlessness. His ears throbbed and his battered senses couldn't take the vertigo. It was like pitching into a void, and the void swallowed him.


	4. Deeper than a Tomb

**"Deeper than a Tomb"**

* * *

 _Present time._

Scott, Stiles and the armed men regarded one another from opposite sides of their wary standoff.

Squinting around the glare of the flashlights still trained on them, Stiles counted at least two other men behind Gage. He couldn't see them as anything more than outlines, but they were undoubtedly some of the others from the cave. He wondered where the rest of Gage's men were, or if these were all that had survived.

Not happy to see that _any_ of them had survived, Stiles' gaze flickered again to the many dark doorways ringing the edges of the large, circular room in which they stood. There were only three bad guys and the potential escape routes sat there, temptingly just out of easy reach.

Unfortunately, those three bad guys had automatic weapons and neither he nor Scott was moving very well right now. Scott was limping and Stiles' head still felt all wrong, his balance tenuous at best. Adding to their problems, Stiles had no idea where any of these tunnels actually led. Hitting a dead end a few feet in or falling into some deep, rocky chasm in the dark were not attractive options. Unless Gage and his companions planned to kill them right this moment, his and Scott's odds of survival were better if they didn't try to run.

Whatever the mercenaries were up to, murder did not appear to be on their immediate agenda. They kept their weapons trained on the two teens, but did not shoot or approach any further. After a moment, Stiles realized they were hanging back at a distance that they felt they would give them time to react if Scott went for them. Only, Stiles knew, Scott wouldn't; not when there was any chance for a peaceful resolution. Scott was not an _attack first, ask questions later_ kind of person.

Gage thumbed a walkie-talkie clipped to the front of his jacket with his flashlight hand, the weapon in his other hand never wavering from where it covered the two teens.

"Aaron? We're at the hub. How close are you?" Gage kept his gaze on Stiles and Scott as he spoke. "We've got unexpected company, of the lupine variety."

The radio crackled with a faint burst of static. "You really know how to make my day, bro," a male voice responded sardonically. "How many? You got everything under control?"

"Just one, and yes, for the moment," Gage confirmed.

"All right, we're almost there," Aaron told him.

"Roger that," Gage responded. Almost before he finished speaking, a figure emerged from one of the passageways. The man was limping badly, but as soon he saw them, his weapon came up and he moved into formation with the others.

Gage gave the man a slight nod of acknowledgement, but this did not appear to be the person with whom he had just been speaking. He seemed to still be waiting for someone. He also seemed familiar enough with their location to have a name for it. _The hub,_ he'd called this room. _The hub of what?_

Stiles shifted as he looked around them and Gage warned him again not to move.

Stiles stilled with a sigh, holding his hands out at his sides in an exaggerated gesture of compliance. "Okay, okay. But, I mean, like, are we going to stand here all day? And where exactly _is_ here? What is this a hub of?" he asked, curiosity outweighing caution. "Who built it?"

No one answered him, which he thought was kind of rude.

A minute or two later, footsteps heralded the arrival of another group, and eight men emerged from one of the other tunnels to their right. These new arrivals were notably not wet or bloody, meaning they looked much fresher than Gage and his companions. They all wore similar gear, but now Stiles was noticing enough differences to realize that they weren't really uniforms, and that all tactical gear just had a similar appearance. The leader of the new group wore most of his gear in pockets or clips on his tac vest, except for the holster strapped to the thick leather belt around his waist. Gage, on the other hand, wore a more streamlined vest and made up by sporting a utility belt.

The illumination in the circular cavern increased markedly with the new influx of flashlights. Stiles squinted, looking over the newcomers, but he didn't recognize any of them and guessed that these men mustn't have been involved in the fight in the woods.

"Well, you look like hell," the man in the lead of the new group greeted Gage wryly. With dark blond hair and a strong 5 o'clock shadow, he was younger than Gage, but there was a distinct resemblance between the two men that suggested they were related. Stiles surmised that this was Aaron and that he was very likely Gage's younger brother.

"So, which one of you's the wolf?" Aaron asked conversationally, waving his gun between Stiles and Scott as the men behind him fanned out to join Gage's companions in making a circle around them.

"I am," Scott stepped forward, trying to draw the man's attention, and his weapon, away from Stiles.

Aaron glanced briefly at Gage for confirmation and then nodded, his weapon now trained on Scott exclusively. "Well, here's what you need to know: this gun is loaded with bullets special made for your kind, and I will most definitely shoot you if you give us any trouble. You look pretty young, but I'm going to assume you've at least heard of hunters, and know that getting shot with these beauties would be very bad for you. If you want to test me though, feel free. That's always entertaining." He cocked an inquiring look at the boys and seemed almost disappointed when Scott didn't try anything.

"Okay, right then." Aaron jerked his head towards several of his men who seemed to understand the undefined order. They produced two sets of handcuffs and moved forward cautiously, snapping them around both boys' wrists.

Stiles scowled unhappily as he felt the cool metal cinch tight, binding his hands in front of him and further limiting their already sucky options. "You aren't hunters," he said, giving Aaron an assessing look.

"Nah, but we've had dealings. They have useful toys," Aaron smiled at him, a cold and yet overly friendly smile that made Stiles uncomfortable. There was absolutely nothing about their current situation to like, and everyone here was clearly dangerous, but there was a darkness in this man's eyes that made Stiles feel especially wary.

Stiles tested the bonds around his wrists and found them as solid as expected. The standard-issue cuffs were plenty strong enough to hold him in his currently non-possessed state, but they would be barely a hindrance to Scott.

A glance to the side told him that their captors were aware of that fact as well. The cuffs they were placing on Scott were different. They were thicker, heavier and possibly made of real silver. Curious engravings that looked like some kind of warding magic ringed them. The restraints must hurt, because Scott winced involuntarily when they were snapped closed around his wrists. Like the woflsbane bullets, the manacles must be hunter-made and specifically suited to their task. Stiles supposed it wasn't a surprise that their captors had such gear, considering that they were, for whatever reason, in the dubious business of kidnapping werewolves.

An uneasy, anxious feeling settled in Stiles' gut as the implications of that thought struck him. These men had taken Liam because they needed a wolf for some reason - some reason that apparently left said wolves _dead_. They'd lost Liam... but now they had Scott instead.

Almost as soon as they were secured, six more people emerged from the same tunnel that Aaron's group had come from not long before. It was as if they had been hanging back until they were sure the situation was contained. As they drew closer, Stiles guessed that's exactly what they had been doing.

Four of the new arrivals were dressed in the same gear as the rest of the mercenaries, although one of them seemed a little out of place in a way that was difficult to define. Maybe it was because he looked a little less fit, all his edges rounder and softer. Or maybe it was because his loose posture, wavy, graying ponytail, receding hairline and round glasses leant him a vaguely _aging-hippie_ vibe that stuck out when contrasted against the distinctly military bearing of his comrades.

Stiles' gaze lingered curiously on the man for a moment, but his attention was almost immediately arrested by the other two members of the party. If this was a game of _"which things are not like the others"_ they were the obvious choices. There was a young woman with dark hair who was either in her late teens or early twenties, and a stooped, shuffling, elderly man in a dirty stocking cap and trench coat. Both of them had their hands cuffed in front of them.

Stiles shot a sideways glance at Scott and saw on his face that they had both come to the same unpleasant realization. They weren't Gage and Aaron's only prisoners. They hadn't been able to get all the captives free. These two must have already been down here in the deeper caves with Aaron's group when Scott and the others raided the cave above.

Assuming the cave _was,_ in fact, above them somewhere. Stiles frowned, wondering how safe that assumption was in the face of all the things about this situation that still didn't add up.

As the smaller group approached, Aaron nudged Scott with the gun in his hand to start him moving across the chamber in the general direction of the closed door. The number of electric lanterns and flashlights now present illuminated the main part of the chamber fairly well, but dark, twisting shadows clung to the far edges like grime around the rim of an ancient bath tub.

Stiles moved reluctantly, dragging his feet to allow the other party to catch up with them so he could get a better look at their fellow prisoners. A feeling of familiarity was nagging at him, and when he got a better look at them, he knew why.

He'd seen the elderly man in the trench coat before on several occasions. His name was Wilson, although Stiles wasn't sure if that was a first name or a last name. Wilson often panhandled on a street corner near the grocery store. He was always in the same stocking cap and coat no matter how hot or cold the weather, and Stiles assumed he was some form of homeless. Stiles had brought him sandwiches or given him a couple bucks on occasion and more than once had tried to steer him onto the market's entry drive so he wouldn't get in trouble with the city's ordinance against soliciting on public roadways.

The woman, Stiles didn't know. She was pretty, dressed in a flashy, skin-tight halter top, miniskirt and stiletto pumps ensemble that suggested she had most definitely had other plans for her evening than going on a forced spelunking trip.

"Hey," Scott whispered as they converged. "Hey, are you both okay?" he asked, as if sensing something not right about them.

There was disturbingly little reaction from the other two prisoners. They moved with a strange, shambling slowness, their eyes glassy and vague. Wilson didn't appear to even hear the question. The woman's eyes flicked to Scott and she frowned. She squinted, trying to focus on him, but made no attempt to respond.

Stiles knew from experience that Wilson was not all there mentally, but there was definitely something more than that at work here. Both he and the girl showed markedly too little concern over their current situation and too little curiosity towards their fellow prisoners. Like their counterparts on the surface, they too must have been drugged to make them more docile and compliant.

Stiles was impressed that the woman was able to walk so sure-footedly in her current condition in those very high-heeled shoes, and on such rough terrain. Walking in them even under normal circumstances seemed an impressively respect-worthy feat to him, actually. She must have a great sense of balance, which he rather envied at the moment.

The mercenaries herded all four prisoners over to a spot by the wall near the closed door, placing them as far as possible from all the other open doorways.

"Sit," Aaron ordered, waving his weapon at them in an almost disinterested manner. The prisoners were seriously outnumbered and outgunned and he seemed to trust they were smart enough to realize that obedience was their best option. A small, mocking little smile tugged at his lips as his gaze lingered on Scott. "Stay," he added.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Moron," he muttered, not bothering to make it quiet enough to go unheard. He pointedly did not sit down.

Aaron didn't seem to care much about his opinion or his compliance. He ignored Stiles and jerked his head towards the two men standing next to him. "Watch them," he ordered, retreating and leaving the underlings to guard the prisoners.

The woman leaned against the wall and sluggishly massaged her forehead with both bound hands. "Do you have any water?" she mumbled to no one in particular, her words slurring.

The guards seemed disinclined to offer her any if they did, but Stiles took it as a hopeful sign that maybe she was coming out of the drugged stupor a little. He edged closer, trying to get her attention. "Hey, how did you get down here? Do you know where we are?" he asked.

The woman winced as if his voice was not helping her headache and tried to put more space between them.

"They brought you down through the cave, right? But _how_?" Stiles pressed, turning to follow her, his curiosity and need for answers fairly bubbling over by now. "Was there a green light? Did you see a green light?" He didn't realize he was accidentally talking too loudly again, his damaged eardrums soaking up the sound of his own voice like he was wearing noise canceling headphones.

"Sit down and _shut up_ ," one of their guards warned. He shoved Stiles roughly between the shoulder blades to emphasize the command.

Any other time Stiles might have been able to recover from the gesture, but his sense of balance was shot and the push sent him sprawling. He crashed to his knees, just managing to throw his cuffed arms out in time to catch himself on his elbows and keep from face-planting into the ground or head-butting the wall. The painful jar of the impact reverberated through him. Despite avoiding direct impact, the sickening pain the fall kicked off in his hurting head easily eclipsed the other pains shooting up his knees and arms.

Shoulders hunching, head dipping to press against his hands, Stiles stayed where he had fallen, fighting to keep the floor from slipping out of his grip while trying desperately not to throw up again.

He was barely aware of Scott sitting down beside him until a familiar, gentle hand curled against the back of his neck. His body felt hot with pain and Scott's fingers were cool and comforting. Stiles let himself sag forward into that touch as Scott guided his friend's head to rest on his lap.

Stiles dare not open his eyes. He was certain that would trigger the nausea he was barely holding in check. He felt the texture of Scott's jean-clad thigh under his cheek as he let himself settle on the ground on his side. Using Scott's leg as a pillow, he tried to relax and lay absolutely still. Blessedly, this seemed to make the spinning and the nausea retreat.

One of Scott's hands still rested on the back of Stiles' neck, his thumb rubbing light, soothing circles against his friend's pain-taut muscles. The angle was a little awkward because of the cuffs, but Scott managed. Stiles felt himself starting to relax and breathe again as the tension and pain practically drained away under Scott's light ministrations. Even the aching buzzing in his ears faded.

Around them, the large, echoing room hummed with the low murmur of voices and the rustle of activity. After a minute, Stiles carefully risked cracking his eyes open a little. When he found that the pain stayed gone, he relaxed and let his gaze drift about curiously.

Most of the men who had been in Gage's party were injured to some degree. Stiles saw that on the other side of the room medical kits had been broken out and wounds were being treated. Gage oversaw getting this procedure started then he, Aaron, and the guy with the round, Harry Potter style glasses moved away from the main group as if seeking somewhere slightly more private. The move put them farther from the triage area and nearer to the prisoners.

"Okay, now are you going to tell me what's going on and where everyone is? One minute, you're sending down the catch of the day, the next you're showing up in freaking tunnel _six_ with less than half the guys and only two prisoners, looking like you took up mud wrestling as a hobby." Aaron spoke in quiet, worried tones. "What the hell happened?"

"Better to ask what _didn't_ happen," Gage replied flatly as he unfastened his wet Kevlar vest and started divesting himself of his battered and dirt streaked body armor. "The key was acting up, the cycles were unusually short and we were having a lot of trouble with the kid. Chipo was apparently gun shy after what happened to the last girl. He didn't give the new brat enough happy juice and she had a complete screaming meltdown about wanting to go home. We barely got the first two through to you before the connection shut down, and the second time it barely held for a few seconds, no time for another batch. We were waiting out the cool down, _again,_ when suddenly a bunch of fucking werewolves and cops showed up and everything went to hell. I had to enact Atlas protocol. What you see is what we've got. We're all that made it. I grabbed the wolf as a target of opportunity on our way out and the other kid's an unexpected bonus."

Stiles lay motionless on Scott's lap, pretending disinterest as he strained to eavesdrop around his still compromised ears. He wasn't catching everything, but he was getting enough to understand that Gage had intended to let him die back there in the cave. That wasn't terribly surprising, but it made Stiles think about the other people who had been in the cave with them. It made him think about his ... _no_.

Stiles slammed the door on that train of thought, pushing it away vigorously before it could swallow him. He couldn't go there. He couldn't look at that. Not right now. He needed his head in the game; he needed to focus on what was happening right now. He let the men's strange words permeate his mind and hold his full attention, turning them over and over and trying to understand how they fit and what picture they formed. _What was all this business about keys and cycles and connections? How had these men been transferring people down from above_? _Was there some kind of secret, probably magic, passageway involved?_

Gage and Aaron were keeping their voices low, but simple privacy, rather than any great secrecy, appeared to be their aim. After all, if Stiles with his messed up ears could hear them, surely the men guarding the prisoners could as well.

Aaron swore in response to his brother's news. "Fucking hell," he muttered with feeling. "Guess there's no helping it. God knows we don't want a repeat of China. But I still don't get how you ended up in six. We've never come through anywhere but eleven. You think the calibration is shifting? Maybe that's why the cycles were so short?"

Gage shook his head. "I might think that, _if_ Ivanov hadn't randomly ended up in eight, and I don't even _know_ where the kid and the wolf landed, but it sure wasn't with us, or Ivanov, or you. So, no, we've got bigger problems than a calibration slip." Wincing, Gage stripped out of his wet shirt and used it as towel. He held his ribs in a way that suggested he was in pain. His body armor had done a good job of protecting him from serious injury, but he was probably going to end up with some pretty spectacular bruising. Blood ran sluggishly down his arm from an injury Stiles couldn't see.

Aaron produced something that looked like a field med-kit from a duffel bag near their feet and started treating his brother's wounds without comment or prompting. Gage lifted his arm and let him have it in a manner that suggested patching one another up was a familiar and routine pastime.

"Our exit got FUBAR-ed," Gage sighed. "More cops showed up and the explosion was triggered too soon, while the portal was opening. I think that screwed us. I've never seen it act like that. We didn't _go_ through as much as get _sucked_ through. It was like some kind of vacuum. Maybe that's why we ended up scattered all over."

"Wait ... _explosion?_ _What_ explosion?" the guy in the Harry Potter glasses asked, contributing to the conversation for the first time since it began. Aaron and Gage seemed mildly annoyed by the interruption.

"Atlas Protocol, Doc," Aaron drawled as if that should explain everything. He seemed aware that it wouldn't, however, because he expanded on the laconic statement without prompting. "It's a contingency, a worst-case exit strategy if discovery is inevitable. The idea is to use carefully placed charges to bring down the cave behind us in such a way that it doesn't damage anything important, but makes people think we're dead and keeps them from asking awkward questions or wondering what's really going on. You weren't there in Tibet, Reese, but trust me, scorched earth is _way_ better than the alternative."

Reese seemed a little unnerved by the answer. "Okay, I understand that," he said tensely, in a way that suggested he didn't really. "But when coming up with this brilliant plan, what _exactly_ did you expect people to think when they dug up the cave afterwards looking for bodies and didn't find any? Wouldn't that have been suspicious too?"

"If the situation was far enough down the crapper for Atlas Protocol to be enacted, there'd already be bodies to leave behind, and people are great at rationalizing things away if you give them half a plausible reason, especially in this country," Aaron said simply. He had finished bandaging Gage's arm and moved on to administer a few squirts of antibacterial spray across some other, smaller abrasions.

"Considering how many of us didn't make it through, they'll be plenty for them to dig up all right," Gage remarked grimly, glancing towards the handful of injured men being treated on the other side of the cave. "For all the good that'll do us now."

Aaron shot his brother a frown and clapped his shoulder reassuringly. "Cheer up. It's a setback, sure, but we're in the clear now. They think we're dead and we can just wait it out down here until they've done their thing and everybody moves on. Supplies might get a little tight, but we can always eat the prisoners," he kidded. At least, Stiles _hoped_ he was kidding. "Time's on our side, after all," the man added, like it was some kind of inside joke. "Soon as everything's settled down, we ring up Sigerson and Landrow, they get people out here to clear the doorway, and _bam,_ we're back in business. Should probably go a couple of towns over for the next kid though. It'll be a pain to handle transport, but better for keeping suspicions down, yeah?"

Aaron dropped the med kit back into a duffel bag by their feet and crouched to dig around in it for something else.

"I don't think we're going to need to worry about that," Gage responded, his expression still decidedly dour, despite brother's optimism.

Aaron's eyes narrowed and he stilled, rocking back on his heels so he could regard the other man warily. "What's _that_ supposed to mean? Gage, what aren't you telling me, here?"

"I _told_ you, our exit went bad," Gage said, his tone laced with tension that was directed at their situation rather than his brother. He paced unconsciously, one hand pressed to his sore ribs. "The cave reacted unpredictably to the explosion. I don't know if it was because of _when_ it happened, or if we misjudged the safety zone, but something went wrong. You know the plan; the charges were small and focused, the blast _should_ have gone straight up into the rock, quick and clean, but you would have thought we just tossed a handful of lit dynamite sticks in there instead. The blast radius was way too big, too messy, and decidedly too _green._ When I realized we'd landed in the wrong passage, I was... concerned," he said the word dryly. "I didn't call you right away after we came through. I waited out the cool down cycle first. I had a feeling I should test the connection."

Gage crouched by the duffel and rooted around inside it himself.

Aaron stared at him like he'd just revealed he was holding a live grenade. " _And?"_ he pressed when the other man did not immediately continue.

Gage wrangled what looked like a fresh change of clothes out of the bag. _"And,_ some days it sucks to be right," he responded flatly. "Nothing happened. No connection. No portal. Nada." He pulled a dark, long-sleeved shirt on over his head instead of looking at his brother.

Reese stiffened visibly.

Aaron rocked back like he'd been punched. _"What?"_ he hissed.

"It won't connect," Gage said simply, meeting the other man's eye with a steady gaze.

"Okay, okay, but you were in tunnel _six_ ," Reese pointed out, his tone anxious. "We always use eleven. So..."

"So nothing," Gage shook his head, shifting to a sitting position so he could unlace his boots. "We always came _down_ in eleven, but you know perfectly well we could go topside from any of them." Rising to his feet, he un-self-consciously shed his trousers and changed into a dry pair.

"Maybe so, but there are twelve other tunnels you _haven't_ tried yet. You can't just make _one_ test and assume a thing's broken!" Reese protested with heat.

"Can't I?" There was something suddenly, unnervingly cold in Gage's expression when he fixed it on Reese and the other man actually backed up a pace. "Don't take me for a fool, Reese. _Of course_ I'm going to try all of the tunnels before we call it a lost cause. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky, but I'm not going to stake our lives on luck or chance. Hope for the best..."

"Prepare for the worst," Aaron finished the maxim for his brother in a way that suggest he'd heard it many times before. "That's what I like about you, Gage. Always the optimist."

Gage raised an eyebrow at him. "At least I'm rarely disappointed," he retorted dryly. "Preemptive back up planning is what keeps you alive, little brother. Obviously, I'd prefer if we can get the gateway working again, but I think we also need to be prepared to assume the worst. You can bet they already are," he nodded towards the men across the cave.

Stiles couldn't make out any distinct words from that far away, but he thought the murmurs sounded a little more tense and uneasy than they had before. No doubt the men in Gage's party had already been telling tales.

Gage stepped back into his boots and laced them up. "We have to get out in front of this," he warned. "They'll smell reassuring lies a mile away and the last thing we need is a panic."

"All right, but while we're focusing on all the ways we're screwed, let's just not forget that there's plenty of possible explanations that _don't_ involve us being trapped down here to die," Reese said in a tone that suggested he was struggling to remain analytical and composed. "Have you considered that the problem could be that the gateway is simply buried? You did just _drop a cave_ on it; maybe it won't work until a path is cleared."

Gage and Aaron were both shaking their head before he'd even finished speaking. "It doesn't work that way," Gage told him in a slightly overly patient tone. "Even if it's blocked, it would still at least connect."

"Remember Romania?" Aaron agreed, sounding a little less patient and a little more like he wanted to rub Reese's nose in being wrong. "We had to dig our way out through a good eight feet of dirt. Being covered doesn't mean jack shit to these things." His expression went thoughtful then and he turned back to Gage. "We sure this is even a gateway issue? Could the key have gotten busted or ... un-set or something in the explosion?"

Spots danced lightly in front of Stiles' eyes. He was unconsciously barely breathing in an effort to catch as much of the soft conversation as possible. The things being said made his mind whirl with questions and ideas. He couldn't fit it all together yet, but there were definitely forms and outlines taking shape in his mind.

Gage shook his head. "Don't think so, it looks fine and I could still open a comm patch, just not the actual gateway. I already contacted Sigerson. He's running his calculations or simulations or whatever. We'll see what he comes up with, but I'm not terribly optimistic on that front either. He was... extremely unhappy that we took down the cave and did that squirrely thing he does where he won't give any straight answers about anything until he goes and plays with his computers."

"Well maybe you should have talked to him _before_ you blew up our exit route," Reese commented acerbically, his volume accidentally rising with the words. "Maybe-"

" _Maybe_ you should take a deep breath and keep your voice down," Gage warned him, frowning and glancing over towards the others, several of whom were now watching them, attention drawn by Reese's outburst.

Their voices dropped even lower then, so low that Stiles could no longer hear them. In frustration, he rolled onto his back, looking up questioningly at Scott. He jerked his eyes meaningfully towards the three men and raised his eyebrows.

Scott gave a small nod, indicating both that he understood, and that he could still hear them.

Stiles jerked his eyebrows more aggressively and mouthed _"Well? What are they saying?"_

"Gage says they're going to test out the other tunnels and then call Sigerson again, but they should to be prepared to move out unless something changes," Scott relayed quietly, keeping his voice so low that even Stiles could barely hear him. Stiles watched his mouth, partially reading the shape of his lips to help make sense of the sounds.

"Gage is concerned about the tremors we felt earlier. He thinks they could be a bad sign because whoever that Sigerson guy is, he was going on about ... the ... _something_ that could have been ... destabilized?" Scott frowned uncertainly. "Um, something about ... needing two points of connection to maintain a ... a ...? Sorry, I don't quite get it," he apologized with frustration. "I think they're saying they're worried that the explosion might have destabilized some of the tunnel structure here in dangerous ways, only it's ... I don't know, the way they're saying it is weird. Gage says..." Scott frowned, not understanding the words he was relating. "That unless something changes, he thinks the only way _out_ is going to be _through_."

 _"WHAT?"_ Reese's response was loud enough for Stiles to hear, but the others hushed him sharply and the conversation dropped back down to Scott's range only.

"Reese says that Gage is crazy, that they lost half the prisoners, including the kid," Scott murmured dutifully. "Gage says he knows, but that it could be the only option they have. He says Reese is the one who told them this was a back door, which means there must be a _front_ door out there and they just have to find it."

"Oh, right, just make it to the inner chamber, because it's not like we've already _tried_ that **_six_** _times._ " Reese's voice was again loud enough for Stiles to hear, although not so loud as to prompt the other men to hush him this time.

"Would you rather sit around on your ass and die anyway? If the gateway is broken, then we aren't going to have a choice. Necessity is the mother of invention and I'm ready to get fairly damn creative if it means the difference between life and death, how about you?" Gage's voice was firm and also just on the edge of Stiles' audible range. Scott started to translate, but Stiles held up his hand, warding him off as he strained to hear for himself.

"The way I figure it, we had to be pretty close last time," Gage reasoned. "For all we know, it's right on the other side of that last door; but if you have any better ideas, Doc, I'm all ears."

Reese apparently did not, because he simply shook his head and ran an agitated hand over the top of his head. "All right. You're right ... but what are we going to do about ...?" he purposefully left the end off of his sentence, darting a glance towards the prisoners and then back towards his companions.

"We'll just have to make do and cross those bridges as we come to them," Gage said in a meaningful tone. Apparently considering the conversation concluded, he pushed to his feet and strode back towards the others.

"Okay, listen up!" Gage called out, drawing forth an immediate hush from the room at large as all eyes fixed on him. "As you probably all know by now, we've had some setbacks. There was a skirmish topside and the bottom line is that we may not be able to go back the way we came. We're running more tests and working on solutions, but I'm not going to lie to you, because you all deserve better than that. The situation is serious. You should know there's a good chance our only way out is going to lie on the other side of these tunnels."

No one spoke, but there was a definite shifting of bodies and a ripple of tension that ran through the group at the pronouncement. They took the grim prognosis well; perhaps better than they would have taken any attempts to varnish over it with thin veneers of optimism that would have reeked of desperation. Gage knew his men, Stiles thought. He knew how to read them and how to work them. He was a clever, dangerous man.

"I won't pretend that it will be easy, or that the road ahead won't be dangerous," Gage continued, his voice and presence managing to be both commanding and encouraging at the same time. "But I know that if anyone is up to the challenge, we are. You're survivors, each and every one of you. We'll do what needs to be done just like always, and we _will_ find a way through this, together. There's more than one way to crack an egg and we've been in worse spots than this. We hang together and keep our heads, and we will all be sipping drinks on the beach at the end of this. Preferably, your own private beaches on your own private islands," he added with a smile. "Am I right?"

A few of the men actually smiled back, a general murmur fluttering through the assembly as the mood lifted the littlest bit.

With pep talk out of the way, Gage moved on to check on the condition of the injured men and to discuss various matters of gear and logistics that did not interest Stiles.

The general atmosphere of the room was serious, but nobody was panicking or grumbling. Aside from Reese, no one seemed inclined to point fingers or assign blame for their situation; at least, not to Gage's face. There was a cohesive discipline to the group and a tacit respect for the chain of command that strengthened Stiles' notion that most of these men were probably ex-military. Probably not all from the same countries, though. English was almost definitely Gage and Aaron's first language, but that was not the case for everyone in the party, judging by the soft, foreign tones he could hear several of the men conversing in amongst themselves. Also, their weaponry differed. They all had rifles, but he thought a lot of them were Russian models. Well... they looked like the ostensibly Russian-made rifles in some of the games he played, anyway, for whatever that was worth.

After a minute or two, Gage and Aaron disappeared off into one of the tunnels, presumably to start doing those tests they had mentioned.

The rest of the men went on about their business. Remaining injuries were wrapped, clothes were changed, gear was inspected, packs resettled, and weapons were checked and reloaded. A low buzz of conversation filled the chamber, but at this distance Stiles could only catch bits and snatches of anything being said. Some of it was in languages he didn't understand, the rest seemed to be focused on concern about their situation and speculation about their odds of success. Some of the men that had been in Aaron's party were inquiring after the fates of missing comrades and the survivors from Gage's party were filling in details about what had happened topside. Stiles wondered if anyone was going to mention the fact that Gage and his men had fully intended to leave their injured behind to die in the cave-in, or if that would be conveniently overlooked since things hadn't gone according to plan anyway.

The pair of men guarding the prisoners had drifted away a few yards to engage in quiet conversations of their own with some of their fellows. They kept a watchful eye on their charges, but exhibited a greater laxness now that Gage and Aaron were both out of the room. They seemed to feel fairly secure in the knowledge that their captives didn't really have anywhere to go, and that half the little group was in no shape to be doing anything, anyway.

Wilson was still huddled by the wall and the woman had curled up on the ground. Her eyes were closed. Stiles wasn't sure if she was sleeping, or just trying to shut out the world. Maybe she hoped that when she opened her eyes again, it would all be a dream.

He understood that feeling, although right now, he mostly hoped that he could sit up without his head falling off. He felt so much better laying here like this; it made him not want to move for fear of breaking the spell. It was very much like those few moments after waking, when you were still numb from sleep and your body hadn't remembered yet that it ought to be hurting.

As if his mind were working through a backlog of information and only now starting to catch up, Stiles abruptly realized that his lack of pain and nausea was, in fact, much too complete and sudden to be natural. He'd been too distracted by Gage and Aaron's conversation to think of much else before, but now he grasped what should have been obvious to him all along.

Stiles reached up and grabbed Scott's arm, pulling his friend's hand away from where it still rested against the side of his neck. Sure enough, he was treated to a momentary glimpse of receding black veins pulsing beneath the skin of Scott's wrist, the marks fading away like illusory after-images even as he watched.

Startled by the sudden action, Scott looked down at Stiles quizzically.

Scott's face was paler and more drawn than Stiles would have liked and he felt a twinge of guilt. " _Dude,"_ he said a bit reprovingly. "Not that I don't appreciate the wolfy-ibuprofen, because, seriously awesome for sure, but you're not at 100%; you should save it."

Scott shrugged. "I'm fine," he protested quietly. "You're ... you're in a lot of pain, Stiles." _It's worse than you said,_ his expression communicated, although, really, that shouldn't have been a surprise to him by this point. Somewhere along the line, Stiles had stopped whining about paper cuts like they were the end of the world. Somewhere along the line, Stiles had stopped saying anything at all when he was hurt, even to Scott. Especially to Scott.

Stiles shifted uncomfortably, not sure how he felt about the way Scott could read him with a touch. He didn't like not being able to keep those kinds of feelings private and he didn't know how to deal with the open concern in his friend's eyes.

He wondered when it was that Scott worrying about him had started becoming something uncomfortable that he tried to avoid at all costs. He didn't used to feel that way when they were kids. Was it after Gerard, when he had realized for the first time that people could use him, could use the concern his friend felt for him, as a means to try to hurt Scott? Or was it after the Nogitsune, after Allison, when Stiles had realized that his friend's care and worry for him could, and in fact _did_ , hurt Scott in the most devastating ways possible?

Stiles was a practical person. He knew, rationally, that he was not accountable for what he had done while possessed, but there was no escaping the fact that those actions had only been able to wound the people close to him in the ways that they had because of their concern for him. They'd cared more about helping him then protecting themselves, and it had cost them. There was no way he could ever explain his feelings about that that wouldn't come across as ungrateful and churlish. No way he could explain to anyone, especially Scott, why any concern aimed in his direction now made him immediately uneasy and deflective.

"I'll be okay," he assured, pulling away from Scott and sitting up quickly. "It's nothing. Hey, what do you think of that guy?" he asked in a whisper, diverting Scott's attention by nodding towards Reese.

Reese had not gone off with Gage and Aaron, nor was he mingling with the others. Instead, he stood with his pack by the closed doorway nearby. He had pulled out an iPad in a shock case and was busy studying something on the screen.

"He's kind of different from the others, did you notice?" Stiles whispered. "Less ... military."

Scott nodded. "I heard them calling him _Doc,_ but since he's not over there fixing people up, I'm assuming they mean the PhD kind rather than the MD kind."

"Yeah, I noticed that too. He's clearly here as brains to supplement the general abundance of brawn, but he's not in charge of anything so I wonder what his function is? What specialty makes him useful? If this were a disaster movie, he'd be that guy who warned everybody the sky was falling, the one nobody listened to until it was too late and now has to save the day," he decided. "But these guys seemed to have caused their own disaster, and saving their own necks is all they care about, so what is he for?"

Scott said nothing because they both knew the questions were mostly rhetorical. Neither of them had any answers.

Stiles' head was starting to hurt again, now that Scott was no longer taking his pain. Scooting backward a few feet, he leaned against the wall to see if that would help. They were apparently just far enough away from the door that the contact didn't trigger the light show.

Time crawled by. Gage and Aaron appeared and disappeared briefly at intervals, returning to the hub only long enough to switch between passageways. None of the tunnels that lead out of this room must connect to one another anywhere but through the hub, Stiles supposed.

He tried to make sense of that arrangement, but his brain wasn't up to the task. He didn't feel good. His eyes ached and his limbs felt heavy, but he was much too agitated to rest. The protracted lull in activity made him feel tense rather than peaceful. The lack of anything to hold his attention set his mind to wandering restlessly, and that was bad. He tried to keep his mind on their bizarre situation, but with no new data to focus on it became harder and harder to distract his thoughts from continually wandering back to the cave above ... and the people left behind there. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his father standing in the tunnel and his chest tightened dangerously.

"Scott?" he asked quietly, finally no longer able to keep putting off facing what he most dreaded. "Did you see what happened to my dad?" His voice sounded faint and small in his own ears. "In the explosion, I mean. I can't ... I can't remember much about it. If I saw, I don't remember."

Stiles clenched his fists together in his lap. He was frustrated with himself, angry that he could have lost such important information, that his recollections were so agonizingly hazy no matter how hard he tried to reconstruct the scene. He remembered his father backing up when he'd asked him to... had it been enough? How far had he been from the blast? Far enough away to survive? What about the inevitable cave-in that must have followed? What about that frantic hail of bullets right before the explosion? His father could have been shot. He could have been caught in the blast. He could be buried under tons of rock. _He could be dead. He was probably dead._

Feeling sick all over again, Stiles tipped his head back against the wall, struggling to breathe normally. He clenched his eyes shut against a dry, painful burning sensation.

Scott's hand landed atop his clenched, trembling fists and squeezed gently. "I didn't, I'm sorry," he said quietly. "But I'm sure he's okay. He was a good distance away from the explosives and closer to the cave mouth. He could have even been blown free, maybe. I mean, we survived, right? I'm sure he did too." Scott spoke with conviction, but Stiles knew that was for his benefit, and because Scott wanted it to be true.

"Yeah, of course," Stiles agreed hoarsely, mostly because he _needed_ to believe it, not because he actually did. He looked down at his hands. The hard, cold truth of the matter was that they were in enough of a mess right now; he couldn't afford to make it worse. His head felt like a loose box of partially shattered marbles and he couldn't ... he couldn't _function_ around the idea of his dad being gone. He couldn't.

Therefore, he could not allow himself to accept the idea of the loss. Not when it wasn't certain. With no way to know for sure, he chose to believe the option that kept him going. He chose to believe his father was alive, maybe hurt some, but _alive_ , and probably looking for them, worried as hell. He could easily picture it in his mind, if he tried, and he told himself that that was reality. It was the only scenario he could handle and he would believe it until he couldn't anymore.

"He'll be okay," Scott whispered reassuringly, squeezing his hand again, helping Stiles feed his necessary self-delusion with the power of a much more honest and hopeful conviction.

"Where am I?" A groggy voice from nearby distracted both of them. The dark haired woman was stirring, pushing up onto her elbow and squinting as if the light in the room was much brighter than it actually was. She seemed to notice her bound hands for the first time and panic flared across her face. She struggled upright, gaze darting wildly around as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. "What the hell happened? Where am I? Who are you?" she demanded in an alarmed rush.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Scott immediately tried to soothe.

" _Okay?_ " the woman repeated incredulously, looking from her cuffed wrists to the armed men milling about the dimly lit cave. "What part of this is _okay_ to you?" she demanded, and Stiles had to agree with the sentiment. The girl listed to the side and then righted herself with another heavy bout of blinking and head shaking. "What the _fuck_ is going on?"

"You don't remember?" Stiles asked with a small frown.

"Would I be asking, if I remembered?" the woman retorted.

"Fair point," Stiles allowed. "What _do_ you remember?"

"I was at a club..." she rubbed a clumsy hand down her face. "Or... no, that was earlier. I was... downtown...? I think I got in a car... Or maybe _that_ was earlier." She frowned, frustrated. "I don't remember. I had a few drinks and little E ... but there must have been something else." She shook her head again, like she was trying to shake the memories loose. "Somebody gave me _something_ , because I don't remember jack shit."

"Nothing at all?" Stiles pressed, sounding a little skeptical and frustrated. "You don't remember a cave or, I don't know, any strange green light or unusual magic doorways maybe?"

The woman gave him a flat glare, but her nose wrinkled slightly as if in faint recognition. "I... I don't know. There was a dark space and like... a glowing green wall with like, a doorway in it, maybe. But... that might have been at the club. I'm not sure."

"Well, you're useless," Stiles said without considering how that sounded before he said it.

"Stiles," Scott chided, shooting the woman an apologetic look. "He just means, because we're trying to figure out what's going on, and where we are, same as you," he explained, not entirely making it better, although he tried.

"They cut holes in the walls," Wilson's voice drew their attention. The man was rocking back in forth, not looking at them. In the dim light, his pale, wrinkled skin looked as frail parchment stretched over the knotty framework of his aging bones and sinew "Holes in the walls. Holes in our minds," he murmured. "They put the thoughts in and take them out. People go in, but they never come out. It's the controllers. The controllers. They control it."

Stiles scooted a little closer, peering quizzically at Wilson and trying to parse what he said. "Who does, Wilson? Who are the controllers?"

"The CIA," Wilson said without looking up. "Black cars and black helicopters. Always following me. Putting thoughts in my head."

"Oh, yeah, that's helpful," the woman muttered.

Stiles wasn't ready to discount anything just yet, but he knew Wilson was given to living in his own world, and had heard him go on about the CIA before when explaining why he didn't want to stay in the grocery store parking lot rather than on the street.

"Is that who brought you here, Wilson? The CIA?" Stiles pressed. He thought the odds that they were in the hands of renegade government operatives were pretty slim, but wondered if there might be some elements of fact hiding under the paranoia.

The woman snorted, but Stiles ignored her.

Wilson shook his head, still not looking up. "No, the controllers," he insisted.

"But I thought the CIA were the controllers," Stiles pointed out.

"No, they control the CIA," Wilson said like it was obvious. "They control us. They put it in our heads. They put me in a car. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go but they said I had to. Didn't want to go into the caves, caves are bad. The little girl is sad and she cries. They control her too. Put the thoughts in her head. Needles in your body. The wires stop them. They stop them, but there's no wires here. No wires, and they put the thoughts in. They put them in. They control us. They control us." He started rocking more urgently.

"Okay, okay, let's not worry about them," Stiles tried to soothe and divert. "What about the holes in the wall you were talking about? You see them make holes in the wall, Wilson?"

"Holes..." Wilson murmured. "They cut holes with green light. Holes into nothing. Into darkness. But these are big holes. It's okay, it's okay. Big holes and we can walk and there's air. When you can't walk, that's the problem. That's bad. Then you can't turn around, can't maneuver, then there's no air. I can't follow you; I don't like tight spaces, James. I can't. They'll get you with their knives, don't go in there! James, don't go!" He looked up then and grasped Stiles' arm tightly between bound hands, looking at him with imploring urgency.

Stiles wasn't sure who James was, but it seemed like Wilson's distress probably had more to do with his past than their current situation. "Okay," he promised in calming tones. "Okay, Wilson. I won't, all right? When they took you through the doorway cut into the wall, what happened, do you remember? Was it like falling? Were there stairs? Or... a bridge...?"

Wilson curled back into himself. "No air. Can't breathe when there's no air. Too small, James. Too small. People go in, they don't come out. Too small. Too small. Too small." He kept repeating the last over and over in a quiet, droning whisper.

"Give it a rest, you're upsetting him," the woman said with a mix of annoyance and impatience. "You don't think all that babble actually means anything, do you? You can see he's crazy, right?"

"That doesn't mean he might not know something that could be helpful," Stiles protested a little tetchily. "He remembers more than you do," he pointed out. Of course, that was only _if_ any of what Wilson had said could be taken literally and was not all the product of his medical condition and the phantoms that inhabited his version of reality.

"So! I'm Scott," Scott interrupted the growing tension with an introduction. "This is Stiles. The circumstances suck, but it's nice to meet you...?" he left the question open, looking towards the woman.

"Jade," she said, giving both teens a wary once over. Stiles was somewhat doubtful that that was the name she'd been born with, but then again he wasn't one to comment much on that subject.

"So how did _you_ two get here?" Jade wanted to know. She shifted about, pulling her knees under her and rubbing restlessly at her arms. In the dim light, Stiles could see a mix of old and new track marks on the inside of her arm.

Scott explained as simply as possible, leaving out the supernatural bits for the time being. Probably a wise choice, since Jade seemed distinctly skeptical of their admittedly unlikely sounding story as it was.

"And you don't have any idea who these guys are?"

"No," Scott admitted.

"Or _why_ they would want to take us?" Jade pressed. "I mean, no offense, but myself excepted, I don't really see a lot of human trafficking potential here. So what's the deal?"

"I don't know," Scott admitted again.

"Well, you don't know much, do you?" Jade sounded annoyed, but there was a clear layer of fear lurking beneath. She twisted her wrists in the cuffs, her breathing quick and shallow.

"It'll be okay, Jade," Scott tried to reassure. "We'll get through this."

"Oh yeah? And you're so damn sure of that because... why, exactly?"

Scott didn't seem to know how to answer. His gaze darted to Stiles and then back to Jade. "Because we will," he said finally. Stiles knew his friend's determination was genuine, even if Scott _did_ have a bad habit of over-promising things he shouldn't have felt responsible to deliver in the first place. Jade, however, was clearly unimpressed.

A loud metallic clatter drew Stiles' attention back to Reese. The older man knelt to collect the jumble of AA and D batteries that had spilled out of the tin he had just dropped. Once they were repackaged, he popped a few into the flashlight he was holding and rose back to his feet. When he turned the device on, Stiles realized it was actually a specialized UV flashlight.

Reese shone the black light up onto the wall above the closed door, like a CSI on TV looking for blood spatter. Only he didn't appear to be searching for anything. Instead, he moved with a slightly bored sense of purpose, like someone who already knew what he would find, but considered looking at it more interesting than sitting around and doing nothing.

Stiles leaned forward and squinted, trying to understand what Reese was doing. Then he saw the shape of faint, purple lines in the stone and realized that the black light was dimly revealing the writing set into the wall. It must be made of something that fluoresced. For a moment, Stiles saw the familiar shapes of the strange pictograms he and Scott had discovered earlier, but then, inexplicably, it _changed_. It was like the reverse of the problem he'd had last year. Then, words he should have been able to understand had melted and slipped away from him, transforming into dream-like gibberish. Now, the symbols on the wall inexplicably turned from alien scribbles into familiar letters he could both recognize and understand. The faint purple words were written in _English._

Surprised and intensely curious, Stiles got up and walked over to the door for a better look.

"Hey, you, sit back down," one of the guards ordered, proving that they were actually keeping a better eye on the prisoners than their lax posture suggested.

Stiles ignored the command and moved closer still. Standing directly to the right of the door, he craned his head back to get a better look at the faint writing. The action made his tenuous balance shift a little uncertainly and he threw out his bound hands for support, bracing against the wall for stability. Now within range of the door's sensors, the letters overhead shimmered brilliantly to life under his touch, just as before. Only this time, the glowing letters were all perfectly legible to him.

 _"Long and full of trials is the road that leads to glory. Many seek, but only the most worthy find. The names of the blessed are renowned, victory attends them and their hands overflow with riches. Choose now the path before you with open eyes, bearing with all that you require. Those who are stout of heart and strong of courage may show their obeisance and enter."_

Studying the words intently, Stiles was only barely aware of a collective murmur of surprise from behind him and the sudden hush that fell over the room. In his periphery vision, he registered that Reese was staring at him.

"What the hell," Aaron's voice spoke slowly from somewhere off to the right. Stiles turned his head and saw Gage and Aaron standing in the mouth of one of the tunnels, presumably having just returned from one of their many excursions. They were also staring at him and all the attention was suddenly a trifle unnerving.

Right about then, the guard that had told him to sit down before decided to enforce the order, perhaps spurred into action by the reappearance of his superiors. Grabbing Stiles by the back of his shirt, he jerked the teen backwards and shoved him roughly to his knees.

Stiles yelped, crying out in pain and surprise at the sudden impact. Closing his eyes and biting his lip, he tried to keep hold of his stomach. When he opened his eyes again, the writing on the wall had faded away and Gage, Aaron and Reese were all standing crowded around him.

"Can we not with the pushing and shoving all the time?" Stiles croaked dryly, blinking owlishly up at them. "It's for your own sakes, I'm trying really hard not to hurl, here."

"What did you do?" Gage demanded calmly, ignoring him.

Stiles frowned, his face scrunching up in confusion. "Uh... nothing?" he tried uncertainly, not understanding the question. "I mean, unless you mean getting up when Brutus over there said not to, but I think that's kind of self-evident and not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things?" he added, going slightly cross-eyed as he tried to look between the three men. They were all standing a little too close and regarding him with a little too much intensity.

It was Aaron who grabbed the back of his shirt this time, yanking Stiles to his feet and dragging him back over to the door again.

"Ow! Hey, what did I say about the pushing and shoving, man!" Stiles protested, stumbling to keep his feet in Aaron's grip. "Seriously, there is going to be vomit everywhere if you don't cut that out."

In his periphery vision, Stiles saw that Scott had pushed up to his knees and was watching the unfolding situation with a serious, worried expression.

" _That,_ " Aaron growled, jerking Stiles in the direction of the doorway. "How did you do _that?_ What did you do to make it light up?"

Totally bewildered now, Stiles reached out carefully and pressed his bound hands against the door, re-igniting the glowing letters. "This?" he asked. "I'm not _doing_ anything, it just happens when you touch it, see?" He pulled his hands away and let the letters fade, then pressed them back again to demonstrate the effect.

Looking about around, Stiles tried to see past the other men's heads to find out if the individual symbols above the tunnel mouths had also changed. They had, insofar as the letters now being English. The words they formed did not make any sense to him, however. They might have been names of some kind, but if so, they were from no language that he recognized. He could only see three of them from his current vantage point: _Manik'_ , _Lamat_ and _Muluk_.

Aaron pulled Stiles away and the writing faded away rapidly. Reese moved forward, pressing his own hand against the hard surface. Stiles expected the glow to flare up again ... only it didn't.

"No," Reese said, adjusting his glasses and studying Stiles curiously. "It doesn't. We have been through this room multiple times now, and I have never seen that reaction before." He patted the wall several times as if looking for a hidden _on_ switch. Gage joined him, running his hand over first the door and then the wall in circles. Neither action had any effect. Aaron released Stiles and tried it with the same lack of result. The other men joined in now too, pressing in close, all of them touching and exploring the wall. Hands groped and probed everywhere, but the lights did not reappear.

Stiles felt his chest tense uneasily as he watched the proceedings. He didn't understand what this meant and it left him feeling both intrigued and a little anxious.

Presently, Gage detached himself from the group and came back to Stiles. "Did you do anything in particular when you first came into this room? Or in the tunnel you came out of?" he questioned. "Did you come across anything that struck you as odd?"

Stiles squinted at him. "You mean, besides the whole freaky black tunnels with no visible support structure in an unnatural cave that seems like it shouldn't exist?" he asked sarcastically. "No."

Gage leaned into Stiles' personal space, holding his gaze with a flat, dangerous expression. "Think _hard_ ," he warned.

Stiles swallowed, shifting uneasily. He cast his mind back, but nothing promising presented itself. "Honestly, man, it's the truth," he answered less glibly this time. "We didn't do or see anything in particular. We woke up in the tunnel and followed it until we got here. That's it."

"Oh yeah?" Aaron grabbed Stiles by his cuffed wrists and drove him back into the wall, pressing his back against it and ignoring the boy's distressed noises. "Then what makes you different, kid? Why is it doing _that_?" he demanded suspiciously.

"I don't know!" Stiles shot back, angry and a little alarmed. "It - it just does! Look, I don't even know where we _are,_ how the hell am I supposed to know why anything is doing _anything?!"_ A little freaked out now, Stiles' gaze went to Scott, the same questions turning over in his own mind whether he'd admit it or not. Why _did_ the lights go on for the two of them and not the others?

Scott stared back; wide-eyed and worried, looking a little spooked himself.

Gage saw the look they exchanged and he nodded at Scott. "You, get over here. All of you," he added, his gaze encompassing the rest of the prisoners. The guards made sure they obeyed and Gage had all three of them touch the door, one by one. Nothing happened for Wilson or Jade, but, as before, it lit up easily under Scott's touch.

"Interesting," Gage muttered, looking between the two boys. He leaned closer to Stiles, studying the smudges of dried blood on his jaw and neck. He tilted the teen's head from side to side as if trying to see where he was injured. Apparently unsatisfied with his inspection, he unexpectedly drew a wicked looking knife from his belt, pulled Stiles' shirt collar aside and slashed a thin, painful line across his collarbone.

"Ow! Fuck! What the hell?!" Stiles yelped in protest, jerking back against the wall in a useless effort to escape.

Scott started forward a step and was immediately surrounded by a thicket of gun barrels. He halted again only because Gage had already re-sheathed his knife.

Gage watched the shallow wound intently for a few long moments, then stood back again with a thoughtful expression. "You're not healing. You're not a werewolf. What are you?"

"Human," Stiles said with a sigh. "Normal, boring old vanilla human, okay? Why, could the other werewolves you brought down here make it glow like that?" he asked, curious again.

Gage looked at him speculatively, but no one answered.

"Or did you just drug them senseless and drag them about in chains, never letting them touch anything, so you have no idea one way or the other?" Stiles surmised with sardonic disdain.

Some of the mercenaries were looking at he and Scott uneasily now and Jade was looking between them all in a manner that suggested she thought she'd landed in an alternate reality filled with mad men. Wilson wasn't looking at anybody.

One of the men murmured something in a language Stiles did not understand. Gage apparently could, because he shook his head and responded in what sounded like the same tongue. "Look, this may mean something or it may mean nothing," he followed up in English, addressing the group at large. "But I can't see that the cave reacting differently to these two is anything but a _good_ break for us. Who knows? Maybe it will open new options. They could be useful." He and Aaron exchanged a disturbingly meaningful look that Stiles didn't like one bit.

"How did the tests go?" Reese interrupted, trying and failing to be discrete about the question obviously riding foremost in his mind. "Did any of the other passages...?"

Gage shook his head, but it was Aaron who answered. "Sorry, Doc. All connection points were a no go, as feared. Sigerson's simulations are all doom and gloom per usual and he agrees proceeding is our best option."

"And we shouldn't waste any time about it," Gage added, a subtle subtext present beneath the words that suggested there was more to the situation than they were unwilling to discuss in mixed company.

"Okay, pack it up, time to move out," he ordered in a louder voice. The men complied swiftly, stowing away any loose gear and shouldering their packs.

Stiles took advantage of the momentary hubbub to surreptitiously extract his cell phone from his pocket. It was a difficult procedure with his hands cuffed and he gripped the phone somewhat clumsily as he turned on the camera and lined up a shot of the mysterious, closed doorway. He bumped the wall to light it up again and quickly snapped a shot without flash or sound. On one hand, the meaning of the message seemed fairly obvious, but on the other, there was something lyrical, almost riddle-like about it and he felt he should keep a record of it for future reference, just in case. He'd tried to memorize the verses, but wasn't willing to trust it solely to his concussed faculties.

The picture he'd just taken wasn't a bit blurry, but clear enough for Stiles to make out with surprise that it contained not the words he'd just read, but rather, the strange pictographs that he'd seen earlier. He glanced quickly back up at the wall, where the English letters were fading quietly away. _What the hell?_ He stared at the image on the phone in confusion.

"That's what the writing _actually_ looks like," Reese's voice from directly behind him made Stiles jerk and nearly drop his phone. Stiles turned and found Reese looking a little amused. "The people who built this place in ancient days wouldn't have written their inscriptions in modern English," the older man said with obvious condescension, as if Stiles wouldn't have had enough sense to think of that.

Stiles scowled at being treated like an idiot, but tucked away the bit of knowledge that this place was apparently of ancient origin _._ He quickly pocketed his phone, hoping to keep Reese from confiscating it. "Yeah, I know. I saw the inscription earlier, in its original form. What made it change?"

Reese, thankfully, did not appear inclined to care whether he kept his phone or not. That seemed odd, until Stiles realized that it wasn't as if he could use the phone for anything _other_ than taking pictures right now. It's not like he had any signal to call anyone ... which suddenly made him wonder how exactly Gage had been in contact with that Sigerson person they kept talking about. Did some of the other tunnels have better signal? That seemed extremely doubtful. Maybe they had special phones, like Satellite phones or something... but those wouldn't work well underground either, would they?

"It hasn't changed, only our understanding of it has," Reese corrected. He seemed to like being an authority on things that other people didn't know. "The letters are the same as they have always been, what's happening is only in our heads. We're not entirely sure how it works, but somehow direct proximity to the key affects a person's mind so that they can _perceive_ the writing on the wall in a way they can understand. For whatever reason, it only works when looking at the writing directly, however. Photos remain unaffected."

"Huh," Stiles said, absorbing the information with interest. "Babel fish glasses; cool. So what's this _key_ thing?" They had mentioned it several times now and it seemed quite important.

Unfortunately, Reese was done answering questions. He simply shook his head and focused on packing his iPad and UV flashlight safely back into his bulky backpack.

Stiles would have liked to get pictures of the symbols above the other tunnel mouths and try to memorize some of the strange words they turned into, but he wasn't given the chance. Already the group was assembled in front of the closed door, ready to move out.

Somehow, Stiles had never doubted that it was through the closed portal that they were meant to pass. Based on the inscription above it, he'd already formed a theory about how the door might be opened was more interested than he wanted to admit in finding out whether or not he was right.

One by one, each of the mercenaries moved to a particular spot on the floor in front of the door and knelt, bending down low and pressing their foreheads against the floor. They did it with a quick, practiced rapidity that suggested they had performed this maneuver before. Despite the circumstances, Stiles felt a little thrill of excitement and satisfaction trace up his spine, because he _had_ been right _._

Once most of the main contingent had carried out the ritual, it was the prisoners' turns. Jade obeyed reluctantly, but Wilson didn't understand what was going on and had to be forced, resisting, through the procedure. He shouted and cursed at the men and wouldn't calm down again until they let him go hide against the wall. He pressed his face against it, rocking and whimpering until he finally settled down.

"It's too bad we lost the zombie juice upstairs along with Johnson and Chipo," Stiles heard Aaron mutter softly to Gage. "At least there's only four of them, but with no meds, I have a feeling this is going to be a _long_ trip."

Stiles thought for a moment they might be talking about actual zombies, but then he realized they were probably referring to whatever drugs they normally used to sedate their prisoners. He'd been wondering why no one had tried to dose he or Scott yet, and was not at all sorry to hear that they'd lost their supply.

One of the guards dragged Stiles roughly in front of the door, annoyed after the fuss with Wilson and ready to force him, but that was unnecessary. Stiles complied without protest. He wobbled a little unsteadily and had to press his elbows into the ground to support himself, but he managed to make it through the bow on his own.

Scott followed suit, and Aaron and Gage went last. As soon as Gage's forehead touched the floor, the doorway ahead of them slid open. The motion wasn't silent, but it didn't grind or scrape nearly as loudly as one might have expected. The effortlessness of it was somehow unsettling.

"It kind of _is_ like Moria," Stiles whispered to Scott as the prisoners were prodded into a loose group and herded towards the yawning gateway. " _Show obeisance and enter_ , _"_ he paraphrased. "The inscription gives instructions on how to open the door. I think everyone who is going through has to do it, like, somehow it knows how many of us there are and won't open until everyone's given the proper secret knock, or, in this case, secret bow."

Beyond the doorway lay an inky blackness, penetrated only thinly by the group's powerful flashlights. Stiles felt a funny chill run across his skin as they crossed the threshold. He didn't know if it was a physical or just a mental reaction, but as he and Scott passed through the dark, cavernous opening into the cool, stale air beyond, he couldn't shake the sudden, creeping feeling that they are walking deeper and deeper into a tomb.


	5. Holding onto Hope

**"Holding onto Hope"**

* * *

The gurney's wheels clattered with a sense of urgency as it was guided swiftly through the hospital corridor towards the swinging, double-wide doors leading to the OR. A flock of medical staff jogged with it, trained hands performing their complicated, life-extending dance across the unconscious patient being rushed into surgery.

Dressed in pale blue scrubs, Melissa McCall was one of the nurses keeping pace with the gurney. She gripped the rail of the bed with one hand, helping to power its rapid progress, while her other hand moved automatically through the process of checking vitals and administering aide.

She had been doing this job for a long time, and she was good at it. She knew to what point your emotional investment in a patient kept you sharp and on your toes, and at what point it could become a hindrance that could not be allowed. She rode that line now with focused determination; squeezing her patient's shoulder reassuringly and allowing her concern to bleed into her voice, without letting her deep personal worry or the fearful questions that wanted to circulate through her mind penetrate through her intent concentration on keeping the battered man on the bed alive.

"John? Can you hear me? You're going to be all right, John, we've got you," she promised, her latex-gloved fingers flying nimbly to comply with an instruction called out by the doctor who had joined them on the other side of the racing gurney.

Sheriff John Stilinski lay unconscious and unresponsive on the gurney, strapped securely into the EMT backboard meant to shield any possible neck or spinal injuries from further aggravation. He was streaked with dirt and blood, his stained uniform wet and leaching darkly onto the stark white hospital sheets. Later, she could try to make sense of what his bevy of different injury types meant: blast trauma, crush injuries, bullet wounds... right now all that mattered was keeping him stable.

"Stay with me, John," she murmured. "Stay with me."

 _o/o/o/o_

Rolling her bloody gloves carefully off her hands and into the trash, Melissa headed towards a set of frosted glass doors. She felt the familiar drag of dissipating adrenaline that usually followed emergency procedures mixing uneasily with the unrelieved tension of unanswered questions still swirling through her gut.

There was a part of her that wanted to return to the OR, to stay with John and assist with his treatment, but that wasn't her job. She wasn't on surgical rotation today and would only be in the way of the people who were. She had fulfilled her duties and John was now in the capable hands of the surgical team. Sometimes letting go was the hardest part of the job.

On the other side of the glass doors, she found the small group of people who had arrived with the Sheriff when he was brought in.

Lydia, Derek and Deputy Parrish waited where they had been left. Lydia sat in one of the plastic chairs, hugging Parrish's jacket around her chilled form. Parrish stood at an unconscious parade rest nearby and Derek was pacing back and forth like he was too worked up to settle. All three of them were soaked to the bone and water glistened beneath them on the linoleum.

Derek stopped pacing as soon as she appeared and all eyes turned towards her, anxious for news.

"He's in surgery now," she told them. "He's in serious condition, but you got him here in good time and he stabilized quickly. We'll know more when they're done, but John's a fighter and his chances are good." That wasn't exactly a medical diagnosis, and she really had no right to be giving it to them anyway, but here was where her personal and professional lines began to blur and she started letting rules relax in favor of stronger ties of loyalty and friendship.

Still, she spared them the details. She didn't tell them that the Sheriff had suffered two bullet wounds: a through-and-through to his upper arm and a graze to his shoulder, or that he had massive bruising, a concussion, internal bleeding and multiple broken ribs, one of which had punctured and collapsed his right lung. Those were only the injuries she knew about from the initial triage. There could be more. There could be complications, especially from the head trauma. The medical part of her mind knew this, but she still believed what she had told them. None of the injuries she'd seen were hopeless and John _was_ a fighter. If anyone could pull through, it was him.

"What _happened_?" she finally allowed herself to ask, now that her professional duties had been discharged and the wellbeing of her patient and longtime friend was no longer in her hands. Now, she could be the worried friend and mother.

Derek and Parrish both seemed hesitant to answer, or were perhaps struggling for a place to begin, so it was Lydia who took control and jumped in with the answer. Rising out of her chair, the young woman gave a clear, concise account of how and why they had pursued the kidnappers into the woods. They rescued the captives, she explained, but the kidnappers were well armed and numerous, and they did not escape the fight unscathed.

Melissa struggled to stay silent and not interrupt as every motherly instinct she possessed riled against John having let the kids take those risks. It wasn't his fault, she knew that, but she couldn't stop her gut reaction to the very _idea_ of the group of teenagers plunging into so dangerous a situation as if it were their duty. The problem, she knew, was that to them... it _was,_ and she had seen too much by now to be able to argue that point. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair to them, but her hating it didn't change anything, so she bit her tongue and simply listened with her usual mix of pride and heartbreak.

Liam, Kira and Malia were all in bad shape, Lydia said, but recovering. Liam and Malia were currently at the clinic with Dr. Deaton, and Kira's parents had taken her home. Mason had suffered a bump to the head, but was all right and insisted on sitting vigil with Liam and Malia.

Lydia could be very capable and self-collected for someone her age. Melissa had always thought so, and she appreciated the young woman's brisk, factual account of what had obviously been an extreme and downright terrifying series of events. However, she could not help noticing that Lydia had somehow managed to omit any explanation of how Sheriff Stilinski got hurt and had mentioned the current whereabouts of everyone in their group, save two.

"And what about Scott and Stiles? Where are they?" Melissa asked, starting to fear the answer. There was no way on earth Stiles _wouldn't_ be here if he knew what had happened to his father, just like there was no way Scott wouldn't have been at his side.

Silence met her. No one wanted to answer, which was exactly the kind of response that Melissa dreaded most.

"The kidnappers were holed up in a cave," Parrish spoke up then, taking it upon himself, as the most official person present, to relay the worst of the news. "We're not exactly sure yet how it happened, but for some reason Sheriff Stilinski, Scott, Stiles and the kidnappers were inside and it ... collapsed. There were a couple of deputies near the entrance who escaped with minor injuries. They had only just arrived on the scene and haven't been able to tell us much about what was going on, other than that there was a brief exchange of gunfire and that they think some kind of small, localized explosion triggered the collapse.

"The front portion of the cave wasn't very deep and the Sheriff was relatively near the entrance. With Derek's help we were able to get him out pretty quickly. The... the rest of the cave is unfortunately buried a lot deeper. Rescue digging equipment is on its way out there right now. The hope is that the rest of the survivors are trapped in an air pocket, somewhere deeper," he said with earnest optimism that was clearly for Melissa's benefit.

The room felt like it was floating and Melissa sank into a chair, struck by the sudden, urgent need to sit down. "You're telling me Scott and Stiles didn't make it out," she said in an admirably even, if very quiet, voice. She fixed Parrish with an intense look that forbad him from lying, even to soften the blow.

"No, ma'am," he said quietly. "I'm afraid they didn't. The Sheriff was the only one we could reach, _yet_ , but that doesn't mean they won't still be recovered. When I was in the service, I saw my share of bombings and earthquakes and we were often pulling survivors out of the rubble for days after the event," he offered by way of comfort.

Melissa wanted to believe that more than anything in the world. "Could you hear them?" she asked, her eyes fixing intently on Derek.

Derek shook his head reluctantly. They had called themselves hoarse and gotten no reply, but he seemed to know she was asking him more than that. She was asking if his enhanced senses had picked up any sign of life beneath the rubble; if he had heard any heartbeats. "No, but with all the wind and rain to interfere, that doesn't mean anything," he told her. "Scott's strong; even if the cave fell directly on him, he could be trapped, but all right." His voice was firm. He believed what he said, but his expressive eyes were troubled and he wouldn't hold her gaze.

"And Stiles?" she asked quietly, giving voice to what they were all thinking. She held desperately to the idea that Scott's werewolf nature could save him and that her son might not yet be lost to her. Yet even as she clutched that hope close, she felt a devastating sense of guilt and loss because she could not imagine having to tell the man undergoing surgery in the rooms behind her that _his_ son was gone. Nor could she bear to imagine what that loss would do to Scott, if he _did_ survive. Her chest ached for her boys. Both of them. Stiles wasn't technically hers, but sometimes it felt like he might as well be.

"Scott would have protected Stiles, if he was able, and Stiles would do the same for him," Derek said with conviction. "Together, they're a force to be reckoned with, and they've always proved surprisingly resilient. We can only hope for the best. I'm heading back out there now. We'll get them out, even if we have to dig them out by hand," he promised.

"Lydia?" Melissa asked quietly.

 _o/o_

Lydia bit her lower lip when Melissa's gaze settled on her. She knew what the older woman was asking. Lydia was the banshee; the one who felt death.

She resolutely shook her head, unsure of how honest she was being. "I don't ... I don't believe I felt them die," she said slowly. She told herself it was not a lie; it was simply not the full truth. Something very strange had happened out there in the woods, and she honestly couldn't say for sure _what_ she had felt. So, she put on a brave face for Mrs. McCall and judiciously chose what to relate and what to omit.

There was no need to mention, for instance, that Lydia had been found standing at the mouth of the collapsed cave, screaming herself hoarse. That worried Lydia deeply, but she had no recollection of how she'd gotten there, and no idea what it meant, so it wasn't something that bore explaining.

The premonition she'd had earlier left her feeling sick with dread over the fate of her friends, but if Scott and Stiles were dead, wouldn't she feel a draw to the spot? Surely, she would feel the urge to find their bodies and to weep for them, of all people? And yet she had stood there in the pouring rain, watching Derek tear into the jumble of rocks like a mad man, and felt _nothing._ There had not been even the strange, creeping sensation of distant death that she had felt previously. She didn't know what any of it meant and couldn't bring herself to examine too closely the strange, horrible chill of instinct that twisted about in her stomach, telling her that her friends simply weren't there anymore.

Blinking somewhat rapidly, she diverted her thoughts by glancing over at Derek and surreptitiously checking to see if his wounds had finally stopped bleeding beneath the concealing camouflage of his dark, dirt-streaked clothing. She'd had to practically drag him into the hospital restroom and force him to take care of his aconite poisoning while they waited for word on the Sheriff's condition. Derek's worry for Scott and Stiles seemed to have made him completely forget a few little things - like being injured and infected with a substance that was slowly killing him.

The poison was gone now, but his healing was slow to return. Lydia noticed that Derek kept his arms folded, his torn and battered hands tucked out of sight. His promise to Melissa was not hyperbole; he had already attacked the rubble of the collapsed cave with nothing but his hands, leveraging his unusual strength against the stones until his fingers bled as he searched for his missing pack mates. That was how they had gotten the Sheriff out so quickly, which had probably saved the elder Stilinski's life. The need to ferry the injured, bleeding, and barely breathing man out of the woods, _fast_ was the only thing that had pried them away from the search.

Melissa inhaled deeply and rose. Her motions were somehow both determined and numb at the same time. "Okay. I'm going with you. Let me just call Angie down to cover my shift."

There was absolutely nothing Melissa could do out there, but no one argued with her.

Lydia knew the same was true for her. Realistically, she could accomplish nothing by standing in the woods in the rain, willing rescue workers to dig faster, and yet that's exactly what she was going to do. Anything less felt like giving up, and that was not an option.


	6. Puzzles in the Dark

**A/N: Due to a couple of references made in this chapter I think it's worth mentioning that since this is set shortly after S4, that means (to the best that I can understand the somewhat fuzzy Teen Wolf timeline) that this story would be taking place sometime during 2012.**

* * *

 **"Puzzles in the Dark"**

* * *

Scott and Stiles were prodded along through a long series of twisting passageways that sporadically opened out into large, vault like rooms decorated with strange statuary and intricately carved reliefs upon the walls and floors.

The mercenaries set a brisk pace that resulted in their unwilling prisoners lagging further and further behind until Scott and Stiles were practically hanging off the tail end of the group. They were trailed only by Aaron and two of his companions who had taken the position of rear-guard. Aaron was impatient, continually harrying them to move faster, but Scott was still limping badly, and Stiles was too busy looking around and trying to take in everything he could.

They were passing through a long, arched hallway, lined on both sides with life-sized murals that had been first carved into the stone and then painted in bright, vivid colors accented with here and there with glittering gilt inlays and solid gold accents. Pedestals and free-standing statues stood at regular intervals between the decorated panels like a museum display. Most of the pedestals were empty of whatever artifacts or treasures they had once displayed, and Stiles wondered if the mercenaries had already looted this chamber or if it had been done by others long ago.

The scenes depicted in the wall friezes had the appearance of being from a story or a legend, but if so, it wasn't any tale that Stiles recognized. The art was highly stylized, making the images difficult for him to decipher or interpret. The tableaus depicted people with dark skin and slanting foreheads that merged into long, pointed noses. Some were plainly adorned, but more often than not, the figures wore colorful, elaborate clothing and headdresses bedecked with feathers, flowers and geometric shapes. Stiles thought maybe the style of the art looked a little Aztec, or maybe Mayan, or Inca... honestly, he had to admit he didn't really know the difference. The lines and colors were as fresh and crisp as if they had been carved and painted yesterday, but the style looked old to him, like the kind you'd see on tombs or ancient vases in history class.

A lot of the pictures featured peculiar, spotted creatures that looked like men from the waist down and leopards from the waist up. Were they mythic creatures that inhabited the story being told, or were they just supposed to be people wearing some kind of leopard skin garments? The stylization made it hard to tell. In several of the pictures, the figures were carrying flowers, urns of gold, colorful robes and elaborate mounds of jewelry, all of which were overlaid with a layer of fine gold leaf that glittered opulently and reflected back the yellow light of their flashlights.

Stiles would have liked to spend a lot more time studying the images, but the mercenaries were hurrying them along and he could get no more than basic impressions of what he was seeing. Slipping his phone back out again and keeping it as concealed as possible between his bound hands, he used it to take pictures of as many of the long panels as he could in the hopes of being able to study them better later.

His attention focused on keeping his actions subtle while at the same attempting to take photos that would be something more than illegible smears of grainy color due to motion and low lighting, Stiles lost track of where he was walking. He didn't realize he'd drifted off the center of the pathway until he nearly ran smack into one of the life-sized statues that dotted the border of the hall. The blocky, stylized figure was unmistakably that of a grim faced man who stood looking up to the heavens with his arms out flung. Something that looked like a thick, knobby tree grew from the center of his chest, pushing out of his ribcage like a chest-busting alien from one of the many horror movies Stiles really wished he hadn't watched at moments like this.

Jerking back from the near-collision, Stiles' pace faltered to a halt as he stared at the bizarre visage. Something about the statue was both unnerving and compelling. He found it profoundly disturbing in a way that went beyond the obvious, and he wasn't sure why. There was something possessive and almost familiar about the way the tree's roots spread out of the gaping chest eruption and wrapped down around the man's body like knotted ropes. As if in a dream, Stiles found himself reaching out to touch the looping coils before he could stop himself or even question the impulse.

A strong hand grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, nearly making Stiles jump out of his skin. "Keep moving, this isn't a friggin' field trip," Aaron told him with annoyance, propelling the teen along forcefully until they caught back up with the others.

Stiles stumbled along in the older man's grip. It was a struggle to keep his feet, but once Aaron let go, he was able to regain his equilibrium. Looking back over his shoulder with a frown at the receding shape of the statue, he wondered at the source of that strange sense of déjà vu he'd felt.

The hall opened out into a large, circular chamber at the end. Deep, intricate carvings formed a circular pattern on the floor and their way again blocked by a closed door. As they approached, another tremor hit. Stiles stumbled, catching himself against the wall as the ground lurched, the walls groaned and the ceiling rained a fine, chalky powder down upon them. Scott pressed against the wall next to him, catching his eyes in concern. It was a little less alarming since they'd been through it once before already, but only a little.

A couple of the mercenaries bit off startled, unhappy curses and Jade gave a small, alarmed scream that suggested she thought the tunnel was going to collapse on them.

Stiles tried hard to ignore that possibility, with limited success. The tremor was about the same as the one before. It seemed too strong to be an aftershock, but that was just his opinion and he was no expert. It wasn't impossible or even all that unusual to have more than one earthquake happen over a relatively short span of time, but he wondered if that's really what was going on here. He recalled the mention of the mercenaries being concerned that the tunnels had been destabilized and frowned thoughtfully, pressing his shoulder blades hard into the wall for support as the shaking abated.

The only person completely unaffected was Wilson, who seemed for some reason to find nothing amiss about their situation and merely sat down on the floor and picked at the sleeve of his trench coat.

"We have to get out! We have to get out of here! Please, you don't have to let us go, just get us out of here!" Jade begged their captors with much less equanimity.

The mercenaries were shooting uneasy looks around them. More than a few of them probably echoed Jade's feelings more than they wanted to admit, which of course made them angry and peevish over having someone else voice the fear they didn't want to own.

"Shut up!" one of the men snapped at Jade, but she didn't.

"No! This is fucking insane! How do you not see that?! I don't care what you think you're doing, we're going to die in here, we have to get out!" she insisted.

"I said shut up!" the man grabbed Jade violently and made as if to strike her. Stiles felt Scott stiffen beside him, but Gage intervened first, catching the man's wrist before the blow could fall.

He issued no reprimand, but placed a calming hand on the underling's shoulder, guiding him to step back from Jade. Taking her almost gently by the shoulders, he fixed her with a steady, intent gaze.

"Listen, we all want out," he said calmly, and Stiles suspected that was indirectly addressing everyone present. "But it's not that easy, you understand? The way we came in collapsed, but there's another door on the other side of this maze. We just have to get to it and we'll be home free, but to do that we're all going to need to work together and stay calm. Okay?" His voice was soft and reassuring, and Jade's tense shoulders relaxed, just a little.

"Why did you take us?" she whispered. "What do you want?"

Gage stroked her hair in a carefully paternal and non-suggestive manner. "That doesn't matter anymore," he told her. "Things have changed. We're all in this together now. This is about survival, and I think you're a survivor. I think you can do this," he murmured.

Taking her wrists gently in his hands, he unlocked the cuffs around her wrists. "I'm going to take these off now, all right? We don't need them, do we? You're part of the team now." He looked around, catching Stiles and Scott's gazes. "You all are. We're all working for the same thing."

Jade rubbed her wrists and sniffed. She looked wary, but much calmer and nodded her understanding silently.

"Good girl," Gage praised. He moved over to Wilson next and un-cuffed him too, although Wilson was still obsessing over the hem of his coat and barely seemed to notice.

Stiles held his hands out to Gage as the man approached him next. He was more than happy to get rid of the bindings, even if he wasn't about to drink the _"we're all friends now"_ Kool-Aid. They were still prisoners, whatever Gage said, he just didn't want to have to drag them kicking and screaming the whole way.

Gage took his wrists but hesitated a moment, studying him. "You understand, there's no way out without us," he said finally as he unlocked Stiles. "There's nowhere for you to run, and you'll regret it if you try. We can waste time fighting each other and maybe all end up dead, or we can be practical."

"And all work together, yeah, got it," Stiles replied with a smile and a hint of sarcasm. "Go team, go. So, since we're all buddies now, can I ask you a question? What about afterwards, if we _do_ make it out? What happens then?"

Gage pocketed the handcuffs and considered Stiles for a moment. "Would you believe me if I told you we'd let you go?" he asked, the corners of his mouth quirking wryly.

"Nope," Stiles responded cheerfully.

"Then I won't tell you that," Gage said with a cryptic smile. "But a lot can happen between now and then, can't it?" He turned to walk away.

"Hey, wait! You forgot somebody," Stiles protested, nodding to Scott.

Gage shook his head. "It's not that I don't trust you," he said, gaze shifting between Scott and Stiles. "But I don't trust you. This is a new relationship," he said sarcastically. "Let's not move too fast." He met Scott's gaze plainly. "Prove to me you won't do something stupid if I release you, and we'll readdress the situation."

"Is anyone going to help me with these? They're heavy," Reese called somewhat impatiently from across the room. He was crouching down next to a large, oddly shaped hole in the ground that Stiles hadn't noticed before. As he looked, he realized that it was because it hadn't been there before; the hole was some kind of hidden compartment built into the intricate floor design. He wished he'd seen how Reese had gotten it open.

Gage and a couple of the others made their way over to Reese and together they lifted a number of large, strangely shaped golden objects out of the hidden compartment. Moving with rapid, practiced ease, the men went about placing the metal shapes into matching depressions in the floor carving, as if completing a giant puzzle.

It was hard to tell, because the design was so large and they were standing atop it, but Stiles thought the ornate circular pattern laid into the floor looked a bit familiar. _Pirates of the Caribbean_ came to mind first. That wasn't quite right, but it led him to remembering other, similar images that had also made him think of the coins featured in that film and he realized that what this most reminded him of was the pictures of Mayan Calendars that had been all over the internet lately, on account of how the world was supposed to be ending this year and all.

Stiles winced. He had been passing off that particular notion of doom for the most part. In his experience, global speculation about a potential Armageddon usually meant it was pretty much guaranteed not to happen; it was the disasters no one saw coming that got you. He found himself sincerely hoping that whatever was going on here had nothing to do with the whole 2012 thing, because that would just suck. He did not feel up to trying to save the world, trying to save themselves seemed like quite enough, _thank you very much._

Stiles wandered the room, studying the floor and not noticing that all the other men not involved in placing the metal shapes had fallen back into the hall beyond. As soon as the last piece clicked into place, he found out why. The floor immediately started moving, the rings of the design rotating in slow, continuous circles

"Whoa! Holy ...!" Stiles wobbled and hopped unsteadily, backing quickly out of the room and bumping into Scott. "The floor moves," he informed as he recovered himself.

"I can see that," Scott agreed.

Reese, Gage and Aaron remained in the room. Gage and Reese stood sure-footed on two of the spinning rings as they went round and round, while Aaron stood on a narrow spot of solid ground next to what looked like a blank, unadorned patch of floor, holding Reese's UV light. Reese held up his iPad, showing both men several sets of symbols on the screen that bore a resemblance to the ones carved into the floor. Once he was sure they'd had a good look, he put the tablet back in his pack and concentrated on the floor.

Gage waited several beats, eyes glued to the ground. Then, he knelt abruptly and pressed his hand against one of the symbols by his feet. The ring stopped turning. Reese was watching his own ring intently as he continued to go round and round and Aaron squinted at the ground, both of them clearly waiting for something.

A thought seemed to strike Aaron and he looked up, catching Stiles' eyes. "You, get over here," he ordered.

Stiles hesitated a moment, but he had a pretty good idea what the man wanted to find out and was curious about it himself, so he complied. Moving along the edge of Gage's stopped circle, Stiles stepped carefully onto Reese's like it was a moving walkway and rode it around to Aaron's position. As soon as he stepped off, Aaron pushed him carelessly face-first into the wall.

"Hey!" Stiles protested from where he now stood with his cheek mashed against the wall. Parts of the carved floor design immediately glowed to life around them, responding to his touch. "Full body contact is not required you know," he pointed out, but Aaron ignored him, his attention fixed on the series of glowing symbols that were cycling slowly across the unmoving patch of floor in front of them.

"Well, fuck," Aaron chuckled ruefully, releasing Stiles and bending down to slap one of the symbols as it approached, freezing the lighted column at the same moment that Reese did something similar to halt his part of the moving puzzle. " _That_ would have saved a lot of time."

Gage snorted in assent, leading Stiles to believe that it had probably taken them a fair amount of time to figure this challenge out the first time they had come through here.

To their right, the closed door set into the wall slid silently open. Above it, Stiles could see the single word _"Today"_ written in glowing script. It seemed to confirm his notion that the floor was some type of calendar. You had to put it together correctly and then dial up the current date in order to continue onward.

This date system was unfamiliar to them, which made it a challenging puzzle, but Stiles couldn't help wondering as they passed through the doorway, if it would really have been that difficult way back whenever this place was built? Something about it nagged at him.

More walking through more tunnels eventually led them to another closed door. Stiles preemptively clapped his hand to the wall by the door to light it up, scowling at Aaron who had made a half-step towards him. Aaron grinned as if Stiles amused him and Stiles pointedly looked away, studying the new room and the new puzzle. Gage had called this place a maze, but so far there only seemed to be one path to follow. There were, however, a lot of closed doors, each of which seemed to require some specific action to unlock. Stiles was starting to feel like they'd become extras in an Indiana Jones movie. On one hand, that was kind of cool, but on the other it wasn't, because things never ended well for the extras.

Opening this door turned out to involve correctly solving a complex mathematical equation that was given above the gateway in the form of a word-puzzle. The correct answer was then given by touching a series of inlaid gold symbols beside the door. The symbols must have been numbers of some kind, but unlike the glowing text, they did not translate themselves, appearing as a strange pattern of dots and lines that looked a lot like Braille to Stiles. He thought there was something odd about the equation too, like it was assuming a different base numbering system maybe. Lydia probably would have understood it right away, but he'd need more time to work it out. That wasn't necessary, however, because the mercenaries already knew the answer.

Reese, dividing his attention between his tablet and the wall, touched the golden symbols in a rapid series of movements as if tapping out a code, and the doors opened. He moved through the task with the familiar, bored rapidity of someone who had performed the actions multiple times.

"They've played through this part of the level before," Stiles whispered to Scott. "It's like a game that doesn't let you save right before the boss battle and you have to replay the whole sequence every time you die. Although... let's hope not literally," he added with a grimace.

As if to underscore that cheery thought, another tremor choose that moment to rock the ground beneath them. More violent than the previous ones, it sent half the group tumbling to the ground. Flashlights fell and rolled across the shaking ground, beams of light spinning and dancing crazily across the walls in the darkness as bodies stumbled and bumped into one another.

There were a few muttered curses and shouts. Stiles could hear Jade's rapid breathing near his ear, going at counter point to his own as they all huddled on the floor, praying for the tunnel to hold. "I hate this, I hate this, I hate this..." she murmured and he agreed wholeheartedly.

The tremor was violent but it didn't last long. Soon everyone was scrambling back to their feet and collecting fallen gear.

"They're getting worse," one of the men murmured. "That can't be good."

"All right, let's keep it moving, next door's just ahead," Gage said briskly, prodding them into action like nothing had happened. Stiles could see the edge of tension in him, though. He saw the unease in the silent glance that passed between Gage, Aaron and Reese. Gage may be playing the situation off like it was no big deal, but he didn't really believe that. He was concerned, very concerned.

Based on what Gage had said, Stiles expected to presently encounter another closed door, but instead they stopped beside a small dark, open doorway that lead off the left side of the tunnel. In the broad circle of light cast by their electric lanterns, he could see that the passage ahead of them continued on for some distance more, only to then come to an abrupt dead end.

Scott had lagged behind again and Aaron sought him out. "Okay, time for our werewolf to make himself useful," he said, taking hold of the back of Scott's torn jacket. Clutching a fistful of denim, he pushed between Scott's shoulder blades, forcing the young alpha towards the front of the group.

Stiles stiffened immediately, not liking the sound of that. "Wait, why?" he demanded, trying to get in Aaron's way. The man shouldered him aside easily, knocking him into the wall and pushing Scott up until he was level with the small doorway. He kept his fist tight in Scott's jacket, handling him with noticeably more caution than he'd displayed when pushing Stiles about.

Gage stepped up to Scott, taking hold of his bound hands and fixing him with a steady look. "Scott... it is Scott, right?" he asked conversationally.

Scott nodded, watching him.

"Scott, this is where you get to show me that we can trust you," Gage continued, carefully unlocking the manacles around his wrists. Like his brother, he watched the teen with a level of caution that said he'd seen werewolves in action before and was not stupid enough to underestimate the boy just because he _looked_ like a kid.

Scott glanced at the doorway and then back at Gage. "What do you want me to do?" he asked slowly.

"As you may have noticed, passage through this place requires meeting a certain set of requirements. Well, through here, there's an obstacle course," Gage nodded at the doorway. "The catch is that no human is capable of making it through. It requires a level of quickness and endurance that, as far as we've found, only werewolves possess."

Stiles continued to dislike what he was hearing. He was not okay with them sending Scott into something too dangerous for anybody else to survive.

"Why do they keep talking about werewolves? Is _everyone_ here insane?" Jade murmured to Stiles, unexpectedly disrupting his train of thought. She shook her head, rubbing her arms compulsively.

"Probably," Stiles allowed distractedly, his attention fixed on what was happening elsewhere. "But, uh, not because of the werewolf thing. Those are real."

She gave him a disgusted look, like she thought he was messing with her, but Stiles didn't care. Maybe it was easier for her to rationalize that the weird stuff happening down here had some kind of bizarre technological explanation behind it, but if they were going to make it out of this she would probably have to learn the truth at some point. Jade looked like she was about to say something else, but Stiles hushed her, more interested in what Gage was saying.

"Someone has to complete the course, to open the next door," Gage explained. "So, I'm going to turn you loose to do that, and you're _not_ going to make me regret that," he warned.

"Okay, but I'm not..." Scott started to say.

Aaron cut him off before he could complete his thought. "You're _not_ gonna give us any trouble about pulling your weight, here, is what you're not going to do. Keep in mind, kid, that if we get stuck you'll die down here the same as the rest of us; the unpleasant parts will just last longer for you." His tone was disconcertingly pleasant, but the man's eyes were dark.

"I get that," Scott shot back with a touch of exasperation. "I have no problem doing this..."

"I do!" Stiles waved his hand in the air like they were in class. "I have _big_ problems with this." Everyone ignored him, although Scott shot him a small, weary smile.

"...but if its speed that's needed, _that_ could be a problem," Scott finished with a concerned frown. He nodded his chin downward to indicate his messed up leg and gave Gage and Aaron a look that seemed to ask if they somehow _hadn't_ managed to notice him limping this whole time.

Stiles could tell Scott was trying to be truthful with them so they could come up with the best strategy to work around his current limitations, but these men didn't know Scott like he did. They seemed to think he was trying to make excuses or playing some kind of angle with them.

"You can give that act a break," Aaron said impatiently. "Nobody's buying the ' _I'm weak and defenseless, so underestimate me'_ routine, kid. We're not new at this, all right? We _know_ what you are and how you heal. There's nothing wrong with you that the proper incentive won't fix."

Scott was so surprised at the revelation that they thought he'd been trying to play them this whole time that he didn't realize what Aaron was up to until the older man suddenly produced a stun baton and jabbed it into his ribs.

Calibrated to levels that would be lethal for a human, the unexpected electric shock dropped Scott to his knees with a cry. His body jerked in a spasm of pain as he caught himself on his hands. Aaron pulled the baton away again quickly, his intention obviously to hurt rather than immobilize.

"HEY!" Stiles protested, rushing forward only to have Gage block his way, the bigger man easily catching his arm and twisting it behind his back in a casually restraining grip when Stiles tried to struggle past him.

Aaron stood over Scott with the baton in one hand and his pistol in the other, brandishing them warily as if he were an old fashioned lion tamer with chair and whip.

Scott pushed himself up off his hands, and when his head came up, his wolf was on the surface. Enough pain could usually knock him _out_ of a change and keep him human, but the combination of sudden pain paired with an unexpected threat could sometimes trigger it as well. It was what Stiles called his "Hulk reflex", an unconscious instinct that drew out Scott's wolf like a protection mechanism when he experienced a certain level of stimulus. In the beginning anything that raised his heart rate had triggered him, but now he usually only responded that way to _actual_ threats.

Everyone but Gage and Aaron took drew back an unconscious pace or two and Stiles heard Jade gasp softly. Truthfully, Stiles had seen Scott's transformation so many times that he honestly didn't find his wolf face remotely frightening anymore. It was always a little bit weird for him now when other people reacted like it was this scary thing. It was just Scott with rearranged bone structure, extra hair and teeth, and glowing eyes. Not a big deal, really.

"He's fine, we're fine, _everything's fine,_ don't freak out," Stiles tried to assure quickly, not wanting any of the nervous men to do anything stupid like shoot Scott because they didn't know that transformation did not automatically equal a loss of control or imminent threat of attack.

Thankfully, Gage and Aaron held their cool and the rest of the men took their cue from them. Most of them seemed to have seen transformed wolves before, although a few of the murmurs he was hearing told Stiles that some of the men were unsettled by Scott's red eyes.

"Look, this isn't necessary," Scott said with strained patience, his voice slightly altered from the necessity of talking around his fangs. He held his hands out at his sides, trying to indicate his lack of threatening intent. "It's not an act. I'm not trying to be difficult or ... or fake it, or whatever you think I'm doing." Drawing in a deep, calming breath, he rolled his neck and schooled his features back to human.

"It's _not_ ," Stiles agreed. "Totally not. There really is something wrong with his leg. We think shrapnel from the explosion maybe got imbedded in the bone or something and his body healed around it, but moving means re-injuring and re-healing all the time."

"Gage, trust me, I want to get everyone out of here, and I'll do whatever I can to make that happen," Scott said firmly. He ignored Aaron, still standing over him, in favor of directing his gaze towards the group's leader. "But I'm not at 100%, so the better prepared I am for whatever's in there, the better our odds are. You've obviously been through all this before, just tell me what to expect so I can figure out the best way to deal with it," he reasoned.

"Fair enough," Gage agreed, releasing Stiles, who quickly pulled away and rubbed his arm, shooting the older man a dirty look. Backing Aaron off with a glance, Gage cautiously offered Scott a hand up, which Scott accepted.

"Running speed isn't really what you'll need in there," Gage said once Scott was back on his feet. " _Reaction_ speed is more important, and the ability to shake off a hit, if necessary."

Stiles saw Reese give a silent little huff. It was the kind of unconscious reaction one might make when hearing something they knew to be an understatement and Stiles' eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"We've used a head cam a couple times before to try and make a map of the course," Gage continued. "But the problem is that the obstacles change each time. I can't tell you what exactly is going to happen when, but it's basically a lot of booby traps of the slicing, dicing, stabbing and crushing variety. You'll need to be prepared to duck and dodge a lot, so stay on your toes and if the walls start moving, get out of that area _fast_. The only consistent part is at the end. Once you get through the rest of the challenge, you'll end up in a room with an empty pedestal and 13 gold balls. Place the balls on the pedestal, one at a time and that will unblock the tunnel," Gage inclined his head towards where the passage dead-ended in the distance ahead.

Scott nodded his understanding and Gage handed him a flashlight.

Stiles shifted from one foot to the other, still disliking this all immensely. He knew they didn't have a choice and it _sounded_ simple enough, but he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that Gage wasn't telling them everything.

"How does Scott get out?" he pressed, eyes narrowed. "You said the tunnel opens out _here_ , were we are, but Scott is going to be in _there,_ where all the pokey, stabby, slashy stuff is _._ Does he have to go all the way _back_ through the doomsday machine again when he's done?"

"No, there's a closed door in the final room that lets out into the passageway on the other side of that wall," Gage said, nodding again to the artificial dead-end ahead of them.

"I still don't like it. Maybe I should go with you," Stiles muttered to Scott, glancing suspiciously at the dark hole in the passage wall.

Scott gave Stiles a look and shook his head. "Not a good idea, you heard what they said. I'll be fine," he promised, flicking on the flashlight and shining it through the narrow opening.

"Yeah, sure, _if_ we can trust them, which, I'm pretty sure we _can't,_ " Stiles hissed quietly. "Scott, there's gotta be a _reason_ they keep needing new werewolves..." he insisted, grasping his friend's sleeve tightly in agitation.

"I know," Scott said quietly, holding Stiles' gaze. "I know that, but Stiles... what other choice is there? We can't just stay here."

Stiles sighed, dropping Scott's sleeve and looking both put out and dejected. "Yeah, I know," he admitted. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it. Just... be careful, okay?"

Scott grinned at him as if the advice was amusing coming from Stiles, of all people. "Aren't I always?"

"Uh, how about ' _no'_ and ' _hell, no'_?" Stiles shot back, wishing he felt better about this whole thing as his friend disappeared through the doorway.

The flashlight Gage had given Scott proved entirely unnecessary, because instant he crossed the threshold of the narrow side tunnel, it lit up around him as if someone had flipped a light switch. In the new illumination, Stiles could see that the passage went a few feet in and then took a sharp right turn, the floor giving way to a tall, narrow stairway cut into the black stone. Carvings of various types of flowers ran along the walls and overhung the stairway.

Raising his eyebrows and pocketing the unneeded flashlight, Scott started climbing. The light followed him, like those motion sensor activated freezer lights in the grocery store that lit up ahead of you and slowly winked out again once you were past.

"Well, isn't _that_ handy," Aaron remarked as he holstered his weapon and baton. "I don't know whether to be pleased or disturbed."

Gage glanced at his watch and shrugged. "Should give him an edge, right? I told you this could work in our favor," he opined, moving further down the main passage and stopping to wait by the wall that blocked their path.

Stiles assumed from what they said that the light had not appeared for the other werewolves they'd sent in there previously. Most of the party followed Gage, but Stiles remained in the doorway, watching Scott until he disappeared from view up the stairs. The last of the light slowly died away in his wake, leaving the part of the chamber that Stiles could see once more in dark, forbidding shadows.

It felt like there should be billowing spider webs and piles of skulls, but instead there was just this stale but strangely clean black tunnel festooned with mockingly cheerful floral patterns. Clearly, whoever had done the interior design on this place had not consulted Hollywood.

Stiles fidgeted, feeling antsy impatience crawl up and down his spine. He'd never been very good at waiting, and anxiety didn't help. Needing something to do, he stepped back and examined the doorway. He pressed his hand beside it, but no writing revealed itself.

He paced slowly down the corridor towards the others, eyes searching the blank, black wall that separated him from Scott as if he could pierce it with his gaze and see what was happening on the other side. The length of distance from the doorway to the dead-end was longer than he'd thought at first glance, and he wondered if the staircase paralleled the passage all the way up or if it curved away somewhere.

The sound of a sharp _thud_ from somewhere on the other side of the wall made him start and freeze. "Scott?" he whispered. The sound came again and again, pounding rapidly like the beat of some sort of infernal machinery. Stiles bit his lower lip, his stomach tightening into knots. _What was going on in there?_

He pressed his hand against the wall as if he could reach through it and find answers ... and jerked hard in surprise when the wall went suddenly transparent beneath his fingers. The smooth stone dissolved before his eyes into a flat, infinite blackness that cast back no reflection from the group's assorted flashlights and lanterns. He experienced an odd moment of vertigo during which he thought the wall had _actually_ disappeared. Like one encountering a very clear window, he staggered, his brain telling him to catch himself before he fell, while the nerves in his hand were telling him that it was still resting against a perfectly solid surface.

Stiles pressed both hands against the wall to assure himself that it was in fact still there, trying to understand what was happening. Immediately, his attention was drawn away from the darkness directly before him, to a spot of light and movement overhead and to the left. His eyes widened. There, above his head, he could see Scott.

As vividly as if he were watching Scott on a slightly blurry and out of focus TV screen, he saw his friend in a long hallway at the top of the stairs. A series of thick, blunt metal columns were erupting from the walls of the hall in an impossibly fast and random rhythm, bisecting the passage with vicious, crushing force. Scott rolled and dodged with inhuman speed, jumping over one set and swerving around another just in time to keep from being crushed as he moved farther and farther away from them.

"Holy shit!" someone muttered sharply, a ripple of shock running through the group. Stiles was pretty sure they were responding to the bizarre Jumbotron effect as much as the hallway of doom.

Scott reached the end of the hall and rolled through a closing doorway just before it slammed shut. He paused for a moment to catch his breath. The way the light followed him, leaving everything but his immediate surroundings cast in an indistinct twilight gave the whole thing a weirdly theatrical flair.

"Scott!" Stiles called out to him, but Scott did not appear to be able to hear him, or see him

Gathering himself, Scott pushed off the wall and stalked warily onward, coming back towards them. He was still limping, but he'd shifted again, which lent a certain wary, predatory grace to his motions.

"Scott!" Stiles tried again, but he might as well have been talking to a television. "He can't see us or hear us," he realized aloud.

"It's almost like a kind of one-way glass," Reese agreed. He was standing directly by Stiles' elbow and Stiles started, not realizing he'd gotten so close.

Reese ran his hand wonderingly across the pseudo-transparent surface. "They intended those on this side to be able to see what was going on, to view the person fulfilling the required tasks inside. I wonder why?"

"Ancient Reality TV?" Stiles quipped. "This week's challenge: survive the freaky death room," he sardonically mimicked an announcer voice. He cringed as a deep pit opened in front of Scott, the wall behind him suddenly rushing forward to push him into it. Scott leaped, clearing the obstacle and rolling back up just in time to avoid blades that whooshed up out of the ground.

It felt weirdly disconnected and voyeuristic to watch what was happening like this, but seeing what was happening was better than not knowing. The obstacle course was as dangerous as Gage had indicated, but ironically, seeing what Scott was up against reassured Stiles a little, because he knew his friend had this. He'd seen Scott in action before and had ultimate faith in his ability to overcome these kinds of challenges.

"It does suggest this was in some way meant to be a team challenge," Reese commented as he studied the wall.

Stiles shook his head, disagreeing. "If it was a team challenge he would be able to hear us, we could warn him if we saw something coming," he pointed out. "All we can do is watch. People on this side were only here to observe."

Reese cast a side-ways look at him. Stiles wasn't sure if the older man were considering the point, or merely piqued that someone had pointed out a flaw in his theory.

Stiles felt a swell of sudden irritation. "You know, you all seem to know an awful little about this place and how it works. I mean _this,_ " he nodded towards the viewing wall. "This is pretty huge, and you didn't even know it was here, much less what it's for or what it means. You're brute-forcing your way through something you don't understand, does that _not_ strike anyone else as a terrible idea?"

If it did, none of them were about to admit it. No one commented and Reese pointedly ignored Stiles in favor of studying the viewing wall.

Stiles focused on Scott, tracking his progress intently. Scott navigated several more rapid, near fatal traps in quick succession. He was on a roll, pushing his abilities to the max and moving in ways that were clearly inhuman.

The soft sound of hushed, semi-hysterical mirth made Stiles glance over his shoulder. Jade was hugging herself and staring at the wall in disbelief. Little hiccups of wild laughter shook her shoulders, although the look on her face was anything but amused. She looked about five steps past terrified and almost violently incredulous, like maybe she'd decided that _she_ was actually the insane one.

Stiles wasn't sure whether it was realizing Scott actually _was_ a werewolf, the weird HDTV wall thing or the over-the-top cheesy action movie slice and dice machine that had sent her over the edge, but it seemed she had finally grasped that there was a lot more going on here than getting kidnapped and trapped in some old tunnels with a bunch of human traffickers. To be honest, he wasn't sure how the whole glowing cave thing and the previous doorways they'd come through hadn't already clued her in, but he supposed it was human nature to try to fit what was happening into your own frame of reference and to understand things from the basis of what you considered to be reality.

Turning his attention back to the wall, Stiles saw that Scott was nearing the end of the course. He'd almost reached the edge of the viewing area, where the tunnel was blocked off on this side. Ahead of him was a long, deep drop. As Scott drew nearer, the light following him, it became clearer that the drop was part of the course. The bottom was shrouded in darkness. There was no way to know what waited there and whether this was a death trap or not, but there was no way around it. Going forward, meant taking the blind leap. After a minute of scouting the area and looking for less risky ways to climb down, of which there were none, Scott seemed to deduce as much. Gathering himself and drawing in a deep breath, he leapt. The drop was significant, but not deadly for a werewolf. There were no pikes or anything else unpleasant waiting at the end and Scott landed in a relatively sure-footed crouch at the bottom, unharmed.

Stiles moved down the passage, his hand trailing along the wall until he was level with Scott. His friend was close now, so close it seemed he should be able to walk a few paces forward and join him, but of course, that wasn't actually possible. Stiles frowned as he realized that Scott was standing in front of a dead-end. There seemed no way for him to move forward.

Scott had realized this as well, but as he moved forward to examine the chamber, the light suddenly went out and a glowing panorama came to life on the blank wall ahead of him. It was like looking at the night sky. Celestial bodies floated about as if idly orbiting a large, glowing moon. It was a gorgeous effect, but Stiles squinted at it, suddenly uneasy. The dead end and the lightshow clearly indicated to him that something needed to happen, but what?

Scott was visible as little more than a dark void in front of the glowing, artificial night sky. He reached out and touched the glowing shapes. The cluster of stars under his hand shifted, following him as he moved.

Suddenly, Stiles understood. "They're in the wrong places!" he said aloud, squinting at the spectral image of the heavens and picking out familiar constellations from amid the jumble of stars. "The constellations aren't where they should be in relation to the moon and one another, they're wrong."

The moon started to pulse slowly and Stiles felt his stomach tighten because it looked like a warning indicator, like it was saying time to solve the puzzle was running out.

"Scott, you need to put everything where it belongs. Scott! Put them in order!" Stiles shouted as loudly as he could, but it did no good, his friend couldn't hear him. Stiles pounded his fist against the wall in impotent frustration and fear. "Damn it, Scott, come on!"

The moon was growing larger, the pulsing more ominous. Scott reached out and touched the wall again, his hand landing on Orion. He dragged it a few feet over and then reached for Gemini. Stiles realized Scott had figured it out too, but he had an awful feeling it was too late. Worse, he realized Scott wasn't sure where exactly the constellation he held was supposed to go. For that matter, Stiles wasn't so sure either. He had a decent recollection of basic astronomy, including _mostly_ recalling what constellations were visible during what seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres, but placing them accurately in relation to one another was a bigger challenge. To make matters worse, the star chart seemed too large for a single season and there were constellations he didn't recognize, either because he was simply failing to recall them, or because they were different than the configurations he'd been taught.

The moon expanded outward, crowding the stars out of the sky until the whole wall was nothing but a solid, pulsing glow. A billowing vapor flooded into the room from somewhere unseen. Silhouetted against the glowing wall, Scott doubled over, coughing and trying to cover his nose and mouth with his shirt.

"SCOTT!" Stiles screamed, pounding on the wall.

Scott retreated, trying to escape the apparently noxious fumes, but there was nowhere for him to go. The steep shaft down which he'd jumped resisted his claws and offered no handholds for climbing. There was no other way out of the star chamber. He was trapped.

Wracked with increasingly violent coughs that Stiles could see but not hear, Scott stumbled and fell to his knees as the fumes overwhelmed him.


	7. United We Fall

**"United We Fall"**

* * *

"SCOTT!" Stiles pounded the wall hard enough to send ribbons of pain jolting up his arms. He attacked the unmoving surface viciously, flailing against it in an agony of helpless rage and frustration. He kicked and beat at it with his whole body, flooded with a horrible sense of déjà-vu.

"Knock it _off_ ," Aaron warned in an annoyed tone.

Stiles whirled on them, keeping one hand on the wall even as he fixed a venomous, accusing glare on Gage. "What's happening? This isn't what you said would happen! What the fuck have you done?! What the _fuck_ have you done?!" He was seriously considering lunging for the older man and trying to beat answers out of him, despite how ill advised that probably was. The thought must have shown on his face because Aaron preempted him, stepping between them and calmly backhanding Stiles with so much force it threw him sprawling.

Stiles lost contact with the wall when he fell and the image they'd been watching immediately disappeared, leaving behind only a blank, featureless expanse of black stone. He rolled onto his side with a groan and spit blood onto the ground. His lip was bleeding and his head spinning, but Stiles woozily crawled back to the wall on hands and knees. Partially collapsing against it, he urgently pressed his hand to the stone in order to bring back the picture.

On the other side, the mist was receding. Scott lay motionless on the floor, a few feet away and yet completely out of reach. Stiles' fingers dug into the wall until they turned white. Gage's boots appeared next to him and Stiles looked up with a murderous light in his eyes. "You knew," he accused in a quiet, dark tone. "You _knew_ this would happen."

"To an extent, yes," Gage agreed calmly. "We didn't actually know about the challenge, so either our other fine, furry friends neglected to mention that detail, or they didn't see any lights. Given what we've seen so far, I suspect the latter. But you can relax, kid, your friend's going to be fine." He had the gall to look a trifle amused.

"That gas isn't fatal, at least, not to a werewolf. It probably would be for humans," he allowed, conversationally. "We've tried using a gas-mask to mitigate the effect, but they don't do any good. Whatever that toxin is, it can't be filtered using normal methods, but both the wolves we've sent through previously were able to recover just fine, with a little time."

Stiles was relieved to hear that, but not even close to being appeased. "Oh yeah? Then why didn't you just keep re-using _them,_ then? Why do you keep needing _new_ batches of werewolves and kids and random other people every time you try to make it through? Or, well, every couple times?" he corrected, remembering that Reese had mentioned this was actually their sixth attempt to crack this maze. "It's like you're gathering up other players for a group quest into the dungeon levels, only they don't get a say in it, and they don't come back. You wanna share with the class how exactly they _all_ managed to die?"

"As you may have noticed, this is a dangerous place. We have run into various... issues and unexpected developments on some of our previous attempts," Gage responded cryptically. "The good news for you is that we've ironed most of them out by now. You should worry less about what happened before and more about what is happening now."

The vapor in the chamber had dissipated as fast as it appeared. The previous light returned, dimly illuminating Scott's motionless form on the floor and drawing everyone's attention back to the scene unfolding on the other side of the wall. The star wall receded into the ceiling, opening a pathway to the small room beyond.

Gage checked his watch again and seemed to be resisting the urge to sign impatiently.

A few long minutes dragged by until finally, Scott began to stir. Stiles let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and sucked in fresh oxygen greedily, making his head go a little light and floaty.

Clearly disorientated and not feeling well, Scott crawled out of the chamber into the next room. As soon as he was through, the wall to the star chamber slid back into place. The pedestal that Gage had mentioned earlier stood in the center of the new room. The gold balls rested in a groove on the floor in front of it and Scott nearly stumbled over them. Either they were heavy, or the poison had left him weak, because Scott struggled some with the slightly larger than a softball sized orbs, but with effort he managed to place them all one by one onto the pedestal, as instructed.

Watching him, Stiles wondered at the number of balls. Was more than one really necessary? Did 13 have some special meaning, or had this obstacle course actually been intended for groups of participants, rather than individuals? Or, maybe had it just been made by creepy ancient sadists with weird, random and voyeuristic whims.

As soon as the last ball was placed, the wall blocking the passage ahead of the main group lifted out of the way with a quiet rumble. Stiles pushed himself upright and hurried through with the rest. Just as Gage had said, there was another opening in the side of the passage just on the other side. Stiles found Scott collapsed in the doorway and quickly helped him up.

"Scott? Hey, Scotty, look at me. Are you okay? You did it man. You were awesome. Come on, shake it off Scotty," Stiles murmured, patting his friend's cheek and struggling to prop up his weight as Scott wavered unsteadily on his feet.

Scott gave him a vague attempt at a smile, but he was groggy and barely able to stand. His eyes were glassy, pupils blown. He was wheezing and coughing like he still had asthma and a bad chest cold to top it off. Stiles was able to coax him a few steps forward until a violent coughing fit gripped Scott and he doubled up, his knees buckling and taking them both down.

Stiles knelt beside Scott, rubbing his back reassuringly as his friend tried to cough up his lungs. Blood flecked Scott's pale, blue-tinged lips. "Can't we do anything for him?" Stiles asked, looking up towards Gage and Reese, who were closest to him.

Gage shook his head. "He'll get over it after a while. We need to keep moving." He gave a signal to two of his men and they reached down, pulling Scott up between them. For a moment, Stiles fought them, but when he realized they merely intended to carry Scott, who clearly could not walk on his own right now, he backed off and let them.

Dragging himself back to his feet with a wince, he shambled along after the two men who were half carrying, half dragging Scott as they all proceeded forward. Glancing back over his shoulder, Stiles frowned. He was very glad Scott was alive, but this whole thing didn't make sense. They had _failed_ the last challenge, so why had the passage opened anyway? True, it had been different than the other doorways in that it hadn't been a doorway at all, but it still seemed odd that they were being allowed to continue.

The tunnel widened out into another gallery of statues and wall murals, the ceiling disappearing into unseen reaches above their head and the incline under their feet increasing sharply before finally giving way to an actual cliff. The black stone wall ahead of them was not smooth like the rest of the tunnel, it was craggy and rough-surfaced enough to present climbing grips, but it towered away to _least_ four stories tall, maybe more. It was so high the top of it was out of the reach of their lights. To make matters worse, a thicket of chest-high metal spikes with sharply pointed tips raised skyward formed an eight-foot deep swath of impaling death all along the bottom of the cliff. They were spaced far enough apart that you could probably walk between them with a bit of twisting and turning, but not so far apart that they would miss killing you gruesomely if you fell off that climbing wall.

Stiles just stared at the wall and the pikes stupidly as they drew to a halt, his weary, aching body _refusing_ to understand how they were going to surmount this obstacle.

Around him, the mercenaries were un-shouldering their packs, dropping them near the base of the pike thicket and pulling out climbing gear. Their actions gave Stiles the answer he'd already known and not wanted to accept.

Dropping to his butt next to a statue of two half-leopard men who were dancing or fighting or something, Stiles leaned his back against the bumpy frieze carved into the wall. Resting his forearms on his knees, he stared glumly at the veritable mountain they were obviously going to have to climb. He was good at climbing. Under normal circumstances it could actually be something he enjoyed, but not right now. His head throbbed, the ground shifted about under him like he was at sea and tackling that lovely little wall of death was the last thing he felt ready to do.

The men supporting Scott dragged him over and dumped him unceremoniously next to Stiles. Scott curled on the ground, no longer coughing quite as badly, but still struggling and wheezing for breath. Stiles rested his hand on his friend's heaving shoulder, feeling bleak. If he was in bad shape to be doing a climb like this, Scott was in _no_ shape to be doing it. Werewolf or no, in his current condition he would never be able to make it.

Eying the thick lines of rope, harnesses and anchors the men were laying out in an orderly fashion on the floor in front of the cliff, Stiles wondered if Gage could be persuaded to pull Scott up to the top. They probably had the gear for it, he realized. After all, could they seriously expect Wilson to manage something like this, or even understand what he was supposed to do? Their captors may all be former special ops or whatever, but they were used to coming this way with prisoners, including _children,_ surely they had to be prepared to deal with people not up to such an arduous a task?

That thought encouraged Stiles, but he was still glad when Gage called a halt, announcing that they would break here for food and a little rest before pressing on. Stiles had lost track of time, but he knew they'd been going for hours and hours now. It felt like years, but was probably no more than a day. He was exhausted and he wasn't the only one. He noted that even the other mercenaries greeted the break as something welcome. Their manner suggested that they seemed to have expected the order and he guessed this must be a common break point for them on this journey.

Gazing up at the statue beside him, Stiles realized the two leopard men weren't actually dancing or fighting. One had something sticking out of his chest, while the other wore an elaborate headdress and held a sphere covered in patterns of dots and lines that looked a lot like constellations. Both had a proud, regal bearing and there was a sense of accomplishment in their stance. The figures were angled away from Stiles, both of them looking up at the cliff before them. The one with the chest wound had a hand on the other one's shoulder and his other arm was out flung towards the path ahead as if he were offering his companion the world instead of a prickly climbing wall of doom.

Across the hall, another statue flanked this one. They were the last bit of decoration before the cliff and the pair of carvings formed a kind of impressionistic gateway, standing across from one another like twin sentinels. Only, they weren't identical. The other statue also contained two half leopard, half man figures, one of which had a knobby shaft coming out of his chest, but their poses and attitudes were completely different. If the statue beside Stiles carried a sense of accomplishment and pride, then the one across the hall conveyed an attitude of shame and derision.

The second figure in this carving had no headdress and held no sphere. He was stooped and shrunken and knelt at the other figure's feet. Slashes that could be wounds cut across his body. Again, both figures faced the cliff, but this time the man with the chest wound's grip on his companion was a forceful thing, like he was pushing his unwilling companion forward. The long spear the man held threateningly in his other hand went along with that notion. There was something eerily familiar in the pained hunch of the unfortunate, kneeling figure's shoulders and Stiles' gaze immediately dropped to Scott, still curled beside him on the ground as he struggled to ride out the poison in his system.

This was the answer to the question that had bugged him earlier, Stiles realized, the pieces clicking into place in his mind. The viewing wall they'd encountered back there clearly indicated that there were two distinct roles for people making this journey, that of observer and that of... of what? Stiles wasn't sure, but it seemed like one group watched while the other took the risks. An experience Gage and company were more or less replicating with their gaggle of expendable prisoners.

There probably _were_ supposed to have been 13 people going through that previous course, one at a time, some of whom might make it through with flying colors, and some of whom might fail, to greater or lesser extents. The wounds on the statue across the way suggested that failure could come in the form of either being injured during the physical part of the challenge, or having to endure the poison punishment for failing the final, knowledge test in the star room. Either way, those injuries would place them at a severe disadvantage when it came time to climb this wall. Something it looked like they were not given a choice about, given the unforgiving stance of stick-in-the-chest.

Unlike the mercenaries, Stiles guessed the observers of old had not given their prisoners time to recover or indulged in any kind of climbing or safety gear. They had probably driven them straight here and forced them to free-climb the cliff, no matter what condition they were in. Those who had passed the obstacle course with flying colors would have an obvious advantage, and maybe the lightly injured could use this challenge as a way to redeem themselves, but looking at Scott, Stiles suspected that more often than not, this is where failure of the previous test would inevitably lead to death.

The only thing he didn't understand was why the two observers were shown as being injured too. They looked awfully spry for people walking around with knobby, branching stakes piercing their hearts and he suspected he was misreading the stylistic imagery. Maybe it was symbolic, or maybe it wasn't something impaling them at all, but rather some kind of weird jewelry or breastplate that they were wearing.

Stiles' thoughts were disrupted when their captors pushed Wilson and Jade over to join him and Scott. For all Gage's talk of "working together" it was pretty clear the four of them were still definitely the prisoners in this scenario and their captors preferred to keep them together where they could keep an eye on them, even if they didn't bother assigning a dedicated guard anymore. Guards were superfluous at this point. There was nowhere for them to go.

Wilson immediately scooted to the base of an empty pedestal as far away the rest of them as possible and burrowed back into the narrow gap between the structure and the wall as if that made him safe. Rattled by the unfamiliar surroundings and everything they'd been through to this point, he rocked agitatedly back and forth, muttering softly to himself and working his coat sleeve between his gnarled fingers.

Stiles watched him with concern. He wondered if he should try do something for him, but Wilson flinched when he caught the boy looking at him. He moaned and curled into himself tighter, as if being looked at hurt and he could somehow make himself invisible. Quickly, Stiles looked away. Maybe it was best to leave the elderly man be and allow him space. If escaping into his own world made him feel better, that was probably all for the best. Maybe he was the lucky one, to have such an escape.

Jade was also trying to keep her distance from them, which Stiles could kind of understand and wouldn't have minded except for the openly fearful looks she kept directing towards Scott. She regarded him like he might bite or something, which... okay, actually, that probably _was_ exactly what she was thinking and not that unreasonable under the circumstances, but Stiles was exhausted, in pain and not feeling particularly reasonable.

" _What?_ " he finally asked her flatly, his general irritation a little too eager to find an outlet.

"What _is_ he _?_ " Jade whispered, hugging her knees to her chest and regarding Scott with a horrified little shiver. "What's happening? What are we _doing here?_ "

"Poisoned but alive, thanks for the concern," Stiles retorted sarcastically. "And, as far as I can tell, we're currently re-enacting _Indiana Jones and the Labyrinth of Fucked Up Shit_ with a bunch of kidnapping psychopaths. That help?"

Jade gave him a scathing look and scratched her arms compulsively, hands trembling. Her bare arms were red from all the scratching she'd been doing. "He's a _freak,_ " she said bitingly. "I've landed in a fucking freak show. I want to wake up. I want to go home," she half seethed, half sobbed.

"Yeah? Well join the club," Stiles shot back, feeling unreasonably annoyed. "You know, if you..."

"Stiles," Scott's quiet, raspy voice cut him off, interrupting the harsh, biting barbs about to roll off his tongue. Still clearly not doing well, Scott pushed off the ground, struggling until he was able to sit leaning against the wall beside his friend. "She's just scared. She's been through a lot," Scott whispered quietly to him, between struggling breaths. "Give her time to process it." He squeezed Stiles' thigh lightly in a gesture of entreaty.

Stiles thought they'd _all_ been through a lot and that Scott being a werewolf was _not_ the most disturbing thing to have happened today. He made a face, but didn't argue, obligingly holding his tongue and giving into Scott, as he usually did on these kind of things.

"It's okay, I know this is a lot to take in all at once, but you don't have to be afraid," Scott told Jade, turning a weak, but winning smile on her. "I won't hurt you, I promise."

Jade regarded him dubiously and did not seem greatly reassured. She tried to move further away from them, scooting over to lean against the empty pedestal that formed the other edge of the small area they were occupying. Unfortunately, Wilson pitched a fit at her coming too close to the space he'd claimed for himself and she was forced to quickly scramble away again under the unexpectedly loud and agitated stream of curses, abuse and flailing limbs. Once Jade was a safe distance away she flipped Wilson off. "You fucking crazy old geezer!" she swore at him in return.

The commotion drew the attention of several of the nearby mercenaries, but Wilson returned to his quieter muttering as soon as Jade was at least four feet out of his space, and they quickly lost interest. Stranded uncertainly halfway between Wilson and the two boys, Jade scowled and hugged her knees again, defiant and angry as she turned her back on the lot of them. "Fuck you old man. Fuck all of you," she muttered.

Scott frowned in concern, but Stiles pointedly ignored everything and resumed studying the area around them instead. Like the decorated halls earlier, this one was filled with carved and painted wall murals interspersed with statuary and barren pedestals. He rose to his feet after a minute, wanting to get a closer look at some of the decorations, but one of the mercenaries stopped him.

"Sit. Stay with others," the man ordered in a strong Russian accent.

"I just want to look around," Stiles protested. "It's not like there's anywhere for me to run off to, and anyway, aren't we all supposed to be in this together or whatever? Shouldn't you be nicer to us if we're not prisoners anymore?"

Unmoved, the man calmly pressed the muzzle of his rifle against Stiles' chest. "Da. Okay. _Please_ sit," he deadpanned with mock politeness.

"Oh, well, when you put it _that_ way..." Stiles gave up, warily eyeing the weapon and holding his hands out in a gesture of compliance. Settling back next to Scott with a sigh, Stiles contented himself with what he could see from here. Pulling out his camera once no one was actively watching them; he took some more pictures and looked back over the ones he'd taken before. A bunch of them were uselessly indistinct blurs which he deleted, but some had come out okay.

"What are you doing?" Scott asked him, his head lightly bumping Stiles' as he leaned over to get a look. Stiles turned the phone's screen so Scott could see the images he was studying.

"Trying to figure out where exactly we are and how we got here," he replied quietly. "Because, hopefully, that gets us closer to how we get... um... _not_ here." He shrugged distractedly, his mind too busy with other things to find all the right words and how they should be strung together.

"The question all along has been how we got from the cave above to wherever _here_ is, right?" Stiles continued, thinking aloud. "I mean, we speculated about hidden entrances, getting blown through walls and falling down mine shafts or whatever, but none of that actually ever made sense. We were both there in that little cave in the woods, Scott, and there were _no_ natural ways out of there except the one we went in by, there just _wasn't._ So, that means we're talking about an _unnatural_ gateway.

"Back at the start, Gage and the others kept talking about _portals_ and _keys_ and you remember that green light in the cave? The one Wilson says _'cuts holes in the wall'_? Well, I think that's more or less what it does do. I also think that's the same green light Lydia saw in her premonition. She talked about a smell like ozone and crushed grass, and I swear I smelt something just like that in the cave right before we ended up here. I don't entirely get how her whole thing works, but if I had to guess I'd say that whoever or whatever it is that speaks to her, was trying to show her where those people we were looking for had died. It was trying to tell her that they had been brought _here,_ like us."

"That makes sense," Scott agreed, easily following the winding, slightly tangential trail of his friend's reasoning. "That's probably why it was so hard for her to figure out the location."

"Exactly, because the entrance to this place was tied somehow to that cave, but it isn't a normal, physical thing that's always there. It's some kind of magical or sci-fi gateway that has to be opened with that _key_ they keep mentioning. So here's what I think happened: I think that somehow Gage and Aaron got hold of this key and have been using it to open the portal in the woods and come down here to play grave robber. Not content with what they've found so far, they're trying to crack the code to get to whatever bigger reward lays at the heart of this place. I suspect that Aaron's group stayed down here to wait while Gage's group went up for a fresh batch of recruits. From what they said, it sounds like the doorway they can open only stays open a very short time, with long cool-downs in-between. So Gage was in the process of sending the prisoners down," he nodded to Jade and Wilson, "when we showed up and threw a wrench in their plans. Their fallback plan was to get through the portal and blow the cave behind them. That's probably why that guy in the cave had a dead-man's switch. Soon as the portal snapped closed behind them it would cut off the signal like letting go of the button and everything would go boom. Only, of course, things didn't turn out that way and they ended up destroying the gateway by accident, with all of us on the wrong side."

Stiles looked to Scott to judge his thoughts on the theory. Walking through a situation aloud often helped Stiles get things clearer in his own mind and Scott was always a good person for bouncing ideas.

"Well, I mean, that all fits," Scott agreed thoughtfully, clearly turning Stiles' words over in his mind even as his gaze slid over to where Jade was hunched a few feet away. She'd fallen still, her head cocked slightly to the side in a way that suggested she was listening in on the conversation. She caught him looking and quickly shifted her gaze even more pointedly away from them. Jade had removed her stilettos shoes and she quickly busied herself rubbing her sore, blistered feet, trying to hide any sign of interest in the two teens or what they were saying. Painfully underdressed for their current surroundings, she shivered in the cool, still air.

"I guess the question is if there's a way to get out of here, other than doing what we're already doing and hoping Gage is right about there being another gateway?" Scott raised his eyebrows questioningly at Stiles, sliding out of his jacket as he spoke. He was wearing a black tank-top underneath that hugged his body and left his arms bare, exposing the dark, concentric lines of the tattoo running around his left bicep.

"Yeah," Stiles admitted with a sigh. That _was_ the same question he kept running into and one for which he had no answers, _yet._ "Working on that, but I'm open to ideas."

Scooting forward until Jade couldn't help but notice him, Scott held the jacket out, offering it to her. The thick denim garment was stained and scarred from the explosion it had survived and had most definitely seen better days, but it would at least offer some protection.

Jade flinched when Scott first reached towards her, until she understood his intention. She regarded him, hesitating for a moment with the jacket hanging between them. Finally, she reached out and took the proffered garment. Shoving her arms through the sleeves, she pulled it around herself hurriedly and fixed Scott with an almost defiant look, as if she suspected some kind of trick or mocking remark.

Scott just smiled and rubbed his neck. "Sorry about the holes and the, um, the blood," he apologized sheepishly as he saw her frowning at the stains on one of the sleeves. It was probably good she couldn't see and hadn't looked at the back of the jacket, which was an unfortunate mess of burns, punctures and dried bloodstains.

Jade grimaced and quickly stopped examining the spot, but did not seem so repulsed that she was inclined to give up the welcome warmth of the body-warmed garment. She curled her hands into the pockets and settled into it more gratefully than she probably wanted to let on. "Thanks," she murmured softly. She was still trembling, but Stiles didn't think it from the cold anymore.

Scott nodded, favoring her with another encouraging look before scooting back to his previous position by the wall.

Stiles' gaze idly wandered across Scott's tattoo as he moved about. A memory of Scott tracing the pattern onto a flat surface with his fingers flittered through his consciousness, triggering a vague association in his mind that seemed relevant in some way he couldn't pin down.

"Think there's any chance of digging our way back to the surface?" Scott asked, the question distracting Stiles and dispelling whatever niggle had been working at him.

"Doubt it. Pretty sure if all we had to do was tunnel upward, our friends with the guns would already be on that. Could be we're buried way too deep, but honestly, I have a feeling we're pretty far from Kansas right now. Or, well, Beacon Hills. You know what I mean."

Scott gave him a look that suggested he didn't.

Stiles sighed. "I meant like, in the _Wizard of Oz_ when... you know what? Never mind. Point is that the further we go and the more I see, the less likely it seems that this magical mystery cave system is actually, _physically_ built underneath the Preserve."

Scott still looked confused. "Okay... but there where _do_ you think we are?"

"I'm not sure," Stiles had to admit. "But I plan to find out. The more we know, the better our chances. Call me skeptical, but despite all the rosy teamwork rhetoric, I sincerely doubt our fearless leader's intentions." Stiles shot a sarcastic, meaningful glance across the room towards Gage.

"They aren't taking any kind of precaution against how much we know, and that's not a good sign. I mean, they don't care that we know who they are, hell they don't even seem to care that I'm taking pictures... of this place, of them ..." By way of demonstrating his point, Stiles lifted his smart phone and snapped a picture of a nearby knot of men, one of whom was Aaron. To be fair, with the cell's volume turned off and the shutter sound muted, they probably didn't notice what he was doing. Maybe Reese was just sloppy and everyone else had managed to miss what he was up to, but even so, the fact remained that since the beginning, none of the mercenaries had seemed overly concerned about the prisoners being able to identify them later.

"You know what it means when kidnappers don't bother to hide their faces," Stiles muttered.

Scott grimaced and nodded. "Yeah, point."

Jade had turned around and given up her pretense of ignoring them. She looked between the two boys with a frown. "What? What does it mean?" she asked.

Stiles wasn't sure if she really didn't know, or if her mind was simply resisting the understanding because she didn't _want_ to know.

"It means the four of us need to stick close together and look for ways out of this that don't involve having to rely on the others," Scott said diplomatically.

"And the sooner we ditch them, the better," Stiles agreed.

"Yeah, okay, that sounds great in theory, but do either of you actually have a non-suicidal idea of how to do that? Because so far, I haven't heard one," Jade pressed. "I'm all for getting the hell out of here, but let's try not to do anything stupid that _gets_ us killed or makes them stop trusting us. At least these guys know where we are, and where we're going. Do you? We have no _idea_ what we might run into down here. I mean, what if there's like, wild animals or monsters or something?" Her gaze flittered to Scott before quickly darting away again. "We're probably a little safer around the guys with the machine guns, don't you think?"

"Unless they decide to use them on _us,_ " Stiles pointed out. "They took us prisoner, remember? Think they some warm fuzzy reason for doing that? The previous groups of people they took down here have all disappeared. Because they're dead. All of them. Gage talks a good game, but don't fall for it. Kidnappers only let you see their faces when they don't intend for you to live to tell anybody about them." Stiles was stating what he saw as important, necessary facts. He wasn't _trying_ to upset or frighten Jade, but he did. Her jaw tightened and she stubbornly hugged Scott's jacket more tightly around her.

Scott elbowed Stiles to keep him from expounding any further on the topic.

"What?" Stiles protested peevishly, rubbing his ribs and not understanding why Scott kept treating him like he was being a jerk. "It's true."

"Yeah, I know," Scott said patiently. "But it's going to be okay. Because we're going to figure this out and get through it," he added firmly, his gaze fixing reassuringly on Jade before it returned to Stiles. "She's right about Gage and the others knowing the way. I'm not saying I like it, but I think playing along with them is all we can do for right now. This place seems pretty dangerous and running blind would be a bad bet unless we're out of other options."

"Of _course_ it would be," Stiles huffed impatiently. "That's not what I'm suggesting. So far we've encountered one locked door after another. If the pattern holds and we just run for the sake of running, we'd probably only get stuck at the next one and then they'd catch up. We need to get a handle on what this place is and how it works so we'll be prepared when the time comes. That's why I'm taking all these pictures and trying to figure this shit out." It seemed obvious to him, but he realized maybe it wasn't so obvious to everybody else.

"Look, right now we're moving pretty fast because Gage and the others have been through this part before and have already solved these puzzles. Clearly, however, Ali Baba and his forty thieves have never made it all the way through to whatever their goal is in here. That means eventually we're going to hit the part of the maze they haven't de-coded yet and that will slow them down. At _that_ point, if we're able to figure it out faster..." he shrugged meaningfully.

Scott looked thoughtful, but Jade looked openly unconvinced and scornful. "We can what, open the doors faster than they can catch up with us? Yeah... cause _that_ will work."

"You got a better idea?" Stiles retorted. Jade didn't seem to like him very much and he was more than happy to return the sentiment.

"It's a good plan," Scott interrupted soothingly, although Stiles knew it actually wasn't, it was simply the only one he had right now. "We'll keep working on the details. A lot may change as we get further in. Stuff could happen that we can take advantage of. If so, it's going to be important for the four of us to stick close together and not get separated. Jade, if something goes down unexpectedly and we don't have time to talk about it first, can you plan on keeping an eye on Wilson?" Scott glanced with concern at the older man who had stopped muttering and now just sat silently rocking in his corner.

"WHAT?" Jade protested, sounding about as disgusted and incredulous as if Scott asked her to carry a handful of wet, hungry leaches. She seemed to have mostly forgotten that she'd been frightened of him not that long ago.

"If we _are_ presented with an unexpected opportunity to run later on, like Stiles said, then Stiles is going to have the best idea of where we're going and what needs to happen, so he should lead and I'll take the rear to fight off anyone chasing us, if necessary," Scott explained. "If you could just try to make sure Wilson stays with us and doesn't get lost or left behind, that would be really helpful."

Stiles had the distinct impression that in addition to genuinely being concerned about Wilson, Scott was trying to encourage Jade by giving her a relatively safe purpose to focus on. Scott found responsibility and taking care of others to be a centering force and didn't seem to realize that that wasn't always the case for everyone.

"I am _not_ getting saddled with _him,_ " Jade made herself clear, disgust dripping from her tone. "I mean, _look_ at him. He talks to his thumb and thinks the CIA is microwaving his brain for God's sake. I know this is going to sound all kinds of mean, and like ... I'm not trying to be heartless, okay? Really. But I mean... honestly, can we be practical? If we _do_ run into a situation like that, is it really smart to try to make him part of this and drag him along? I don't think he can do it. He'll only slow us down and like, he could get hurt or shot or something ... and he could get _us_ hurt or shot or something. You see my point?"

Stiles frowned in disapproval, but he couldn't disagree with the practicality of what she said. The fact of the matter was that he also had concerns about the difficulties that Wilson's disabilities added to their situation, but the idea of leaving him behind was totally repugnant. Stiles wouldn't do it to save himself, but to save Scott...? Maybe. Fortunately, it was a moot point because he knew it wasn't going to happen. Scott would never agree to that. No matter how dire the situation, his friend wasn't capable of accepting that kind of lifeboat logic, which meant that Stiles would never have to find out whether _he_ was capable of it or not. If Stiles were honest, he preferred it that way. It was better not to ask questions you didn't want answered.

"We're not leaving anybody. We'll take care of each other and stick together, and we'll make it out of this," Scott repeated firmly, his tone brooking no argument. " _All_ of us."

Jade rolled her eyes in exasperation, as if she found Scott's determination hopelessly naive and his dauntless optimism was grating on her very last nerve. "Oh, wow. I'm so wet for you right now, Captain America. Let me just rip my panties off," she mocked sarcastically. "Can you and your hero complex give it a rest for a few minutes? Seriously, you make me gag."

"You know what? Just forget it," Stiles interrupted her, thoroughly pissed off now. "Scott, don't worry about Wilson, _I'll_ watch out for him. Can't promise the same for anyone _else_ ," he muttered, glaring daggers at the Jade, who flashed him a " _bite me"_ smile and flipped him off with both hands.

Further discussion was, thankfully, curtailed by one of the mercenaries coming over to give them some power bars and a canteen of water to share. They divvied up the power bars and passed around the canteen, Stiles pointedly making sure that Wilson got his fair portion of both. No one felt like resuming the previous conversation by the time they were done.

Jade had pulled away from them again and sat rubbing her arms and legs in small, agitated little motions. There was something not quite right about her restlessness and Stiles noticed a glistening sheen of perspiration on her brow, although she continued to shiver and keep Scott's jacket wrapped around her like she was freezing.

Scott saw where Stiles was looking and leaned closer so he could whisper quietly to him. "Stiles, she's-"

"Just scared, I know," Stiles finished for him in hushed, clipped tones. "Well, news flash, we all are. Yet somehow most of us manage not to act like complete dicks." He frowned as if belatedly realizing there were issues with that metaphor and trying to figure out if there was a way to fix it.

"I was going to say _hurting,_ " Scott corrected with a fond smile tugging at his lips. "And dude, you kind of are."

"I am _not,_ " Stiles retorted incredulously.

Scott just _looked_ at him.

"Okay, fine, maybe a little, but she's annoying," Stiles mumbled grudgingly. "And so are you, actually. Can you just not be yourself for maybe five minutes?"

"Am I really that irritating?" Scott chuckled like the idea amused him.

"Oh, you have no idea." Stiles grinned. Then he frowned as he harkened back to what Scott had said before. "Wait, what do you mean, _hurting_?" he asked, his gaze darting back to Jade with reluctant concern. He didn't think she was injured other than maybe her feet, but had to admit that she didn't look too great.

"I'm not sure," Scott murmured back. "But she smells ... funny ... _wrong,_ " he shook his head, unable to explain what his senses were telling him. "Like she's sick, only... different."

"Oh." Understanding suddenly clicked in Stiles' mind as he thought back to the track marks he'd seen on the woman's arm and his brows knit with worry. "Dude, we've been down here a while, you think maybe she's in some kind of withdrawal or something?"

Scott appeared not to have thought of that possibility, but he nodded slowly. "Could be."

"Lovely," Stiles sighed, trying to figure out if there was anything they could do to help with that and not coming up with any ideas. "We should find out what she takes," he suggested, starting to get up.

Scott leaned into him to keep him from doing so. " _Or_ , we could _not_ go over and ask her what illegal substances she'd addicted to when she's already pissed at us, _and_ we don't even _actually_ know whether that's true or not," he countered reasonably.

Stiles considered this. "Okay, point. Probably not the best time or approach," he agreed dryly as he settled back down.

"Probably," Scott agreed sagely.

Stiles turned his attention back to his cell for whatever time they had left until the mercenaries should decide to press on again.

Scott was breathing a little easier now, but still seemed pretty wiped out. He settled lightly against Stiles' side, his head gradually tipping over to rest on his friend's shoulder as he started to doze.

Stiles shifted over and tilted his head a little to accommodate Scott as he thumbed through the pictures he'd taken one more time. Suffering from some acute withdrawal of his own, in his case from the internet, Stiles wished like crazy that he had access to Google so he could look up a few of the things puzzling him. Or access to Lydia; that would work too.

He still had no signal, of course, and didn't really expect that to change, but on a whim he selected the best of the photos he'd taken, used an app on his phone to compress their file size way down for quicker transmission and then attached them to an email. He addressed the email to Lydia and wrote a brief synopsis of what had happened and what he'd surmised thus far, including translations for the glowing wall pictograms. He saved the email as a draft and then turned his cell off to conserve battery power.

The gentle, labored motion of Scott's breathing was making his short dark curls brush rhythmically against Stiles' neck, his head resting heavily on Stiles' shoulder as he slept.

Not wanting to wake him, Stiles leaned against the wall and studied as much of the artwork in the hall as he could see from here. Whoever had decorated this place had had a real thing for flowers, he decided. Both here and in the previous halls, each huge, carved panel of reliefs was framed by an opulent floral border. Flowering stone vines curved around the scenes as if supporting them, the twisting mass of vines skillfully made to look as if they were actually growing in and out of the wall.

Despite their prevalence, Stiles couldn't help feeling like the intricate flower carvings were vaguely out of place in some way, like they didn't entirely fit with the rest of the motif. Perhaps it was because most of the frieze artwork was so complexly stylized it could be difficult to interpret in places, while the flower carvings were more realistic and life-like, like the freestanding statues. They were accurate enough that a botany expert could probably have told you exactly what types they were.

Stiles was definitely not a botany expert. He could only pick out a few of the flowers by name, including poinsettias, orchids and some kind of aquatic flower, a lotus or a water lily, or whatever it was called. The rest lacked enough distinctive characteristics for his limited floral knowledge to tell them apart. They all had petals and leaves and things. The only other thing readily declinable to him about them was that the artist did not mix flowers together. Each picture frame included only one kind of blossom. Orchids seemed the most common, although they didn't all look the same and he might have been mixing up several different species into one lump and therefore skewing his own statistics. The water lilies also seemed relatively popular.

The flowers were lovely, but he couldn't say he thought much of the subjects of the artwork. Some depicted what looked like ceremonial events, or maybe scenes from a story, but a lot of the reliefs were chillingly macabre.

One nearby scene depicted a man bent backwards over a post of some kind set in a sort of basin. What looked like three men with cat ears and funky noses held the man down, bent backwards over the post while a fourth cut out his heart, blood flowing down the unfortunate man's body into the pool below. The cat-eared men also had spots, making them perhaps more of the leopard-like creatures that inhabited a lot of the scenes, but he couldn't be sure about that.

The style of the artwork made it hard for Stiles to tell which figures were just really ugly humans and which were meant to be more fantastical. He wasn't sure if the leopard-men's strange shape was just artistic license, like bird-headed Egyptian hieroglyphs, or if they were meant to be literal depictions of real creatures. For that matter, he suddenly wondered if the Egyptian penchant for sticking dog and bird heads on their people had in fact been a stylistic thing at all, or if it was actually their attempt at portraying were-creatures who were figuratively half human, half beast.

Could that be what was going on here, in this artwork as well? It was an interesting question for which he had no answer. Whether the creatures in the scenes were literal or fanciful, the expression of pain on the face of the dying man in the center of the relief was certainly real enough; his face twisted in a grotesque mask of agony as his heart was removed from his body by his impassive looking executioner.

Another nearby frieze showed what was either a half-naked man with big boobs or a blocky, half naked woman on his or her knees, eyes lifeless and empty on account of the large spear being thrust into the side of his or her neck and down into his or her body. In the background, someone was cheerfully pitching what looked like another dead body down a well, all of it framed by cheery, graceful swirls of vines and water lilies.

Stiles, long desensitized to crime scene photos and depictions of grizzly death, found the images more disquieting than disgusting. Just what kind of a place was this, he wondered that whoever had built it should cover its walls in death?


	8. Know Thy Enemy

**"Know Thy Enemy"**

* * *

Rain beat against the windows and pavement, creating a steady patter of white noise broken every now and then by the rumble of thunder. Darkness had fallen long ago and the glow of passing headlights on the street outside had dwindled to an occasional flicker. It was well into the wee hours of the night and the Sheriff's station was mostly deserted except for the lone deputy who had been sitting at his desk for hours.

Bathed in the pale blue glow of his computer screen, Jordan Parrish doggedly sifted through the mountain of results that had been returned from his unfortunately much too vague search. Whomever they had encountered out there in the woods had left none of their dead or wounded behind. They'd dragged everyone back into that cave before it blew up, which meant that until the rescue crews started bringing up bodies, there was very little to go on in identifying them.

It was frustrating, because he'd _seen_ many of them in person during the fighting, he could recall their faces, and yet that got him no nearer to finding out who they were. It wasn't as if any of them were likely to have mug shots in the BHPD's local file of the usual suspects. These people weren't random thugs, and they almost certainly weren't local. They had been a well-trained, cohesive unit. Jordan recognized military level precision when he saw it, and recalled that he had heard one of the men cursing in Russian. He felt sure they needed to be searching national and international databases for their perpetrators, but without more than a general description to go by, the number of results was astronomical.

Rain pelted the windows with renewed fury, rattling the panes of glass as a sudden gust of wind howled around the building. Jordan glanced up and frowned. The storm hadn't let up much since it first started; occasionally settling into prolonged lulls only to howl back to life again as soon as you started to think it might finally be ending. Normally the rain would be welcome, but right now it was just one more thing working against them. The inclement weather was seriously hampering the rescue and recovery efforts out in the Preserve.

Sheriff Stilinski had finally come out of the drug induced coma they'd initially put him in after surgery. Jordan had been told he was in good condition, but he knew that only meant physically. He didn't know who had had to tell him about his son; he was just glad it hadn't been him. He'd never thought of himself as a coward, but he didn't think that was a task he could have faced.

The Sheriff had had an important piece of information to add, though. A name. He said one of the men in the group had been called Gage, and that he had salt and pepper hair and a distinctive burn scar on his neck. That was not much to go on, but at least a potential partial alias and a distinguishing mark cut down Jordan's list of possibilities from astronomical to merely wearying proportions.

It had taken him most of the day just to _obtain_ a lot of these reports. The process was not as instantaneous as they made it look on TV, especially when dealing with international files. Being a mere deputy from a tiny sheriff's station in what was _supposed_ to be a peaceful little suburban town did not help either. Jordan had had to call in a few favors from people he'd known when he was in the service to even get access, but his persistence had eventually paid off.

Now, he just had to go through everything, and as with most things, that was easier said than done. He'd been through over a hundred reports already and his eyes were starting to cross.

Part of him knew he should go home. The man he was searching for was very probably dead under a thick layer of stones and earth, which meant there wasn't really any urgency in identifying him. Yet Jordan couldn't let it go. As long as their perpetrators remained a mystery, so too did their motives.

The news was so far putting the whole affair down to human traffickers who had panicked when the police closed in, accidentally blowing up themselves and potentially some of their victims. Two local boys and a little girl were missing, the reports went, along with a score of others and the investigation was ongoing. Scott and Stiles were minors, so at their parents' requests their names were being suppressed. Anna had already been all over the news previously, so it was her face that usually accompanied the coverage. Since most of the previous victims had been indigent or living barely on the grid, they were still struggling to identify the majority of them.

For now the search for Anna and the others was being handled as a hunt for victims of trafficking who might still be alive. Jordan tried not to think about that. It was hard, sometimes, walking in the world of secrets that he now inhabited. It was hard knowing that Anna's parents, and the family and friends of all the others who had been taken, were out there waiting and hoping when he knew their loved ones were dead. Later, he promised himself, he would work with Lydia to see if there was any possible way they could find the bodies or understand what had happened. If not... maybe he could fabricate something? Just... _something_ to give them closure. Or... would it better for them to not know? Which was kinder?

Jordan ran a hand through his hair and sighed. The questions were too heavy and difficult and he didn't know the answers. He'd talk to Sheriff Stilinski about it at some point to get his more seasoned input, but not for a while yet. Not until the man's own personal tragedy had been laid to rest. Right now, what they needed were answers. Jordan felt a clear responsibility to the dead, but they weren't going anywhere and his first priority had to be making sure there would be no more added to their ranks.

The unknown subjects in the cave might be dead, but it didn't necessarily follow that whatever plans they had set in motion had died with them. Chances were high that they hadn't been working alone. Any local associates they might have been working with would probably be even now utilizing their extraction plans. Well, they wouldn't be extracting anywhere if _he_ could help it. Not after what they'd done.

Jordan glanced at his watch and rubbed his face again. He should get some sleep. The people from County would be here in the morning. With the Sheriff out of commission and the dead, unidentified traffickers making at least brief mentions on national news, law enforcement officials at the county and state level had gotten involved. They were sending additional manpower to assist the BHPD, including a temporary replacement Sheriff.

In a normal case, Jordan would have welcomed the assistance, and maybe the extra bodies would prove helpful in some way, but he was not looking forward to having to work under an unfamiliar Sheriff who did not know what was going on and would undoubtedly not give him the same latitude as Sheriff Stilinski. That had been part of his driving urgency in getting hold of these reports today. Come tomorrow, he wouldn't have the authority to make these kinds of requests. Come tomorrow, he wouldn't have control of his schedule or what duties he was assigned. That wouldn't stop him from doing what needed doing, but it would make everything more complicated.

Jordan rubbed his face again and focused back on his self-appointed task. _Just a few more. Just a little while longer._

Several hours and over two hundred possible hits later, Jordan had around a dozen results flagged as possible leads. Lack of any accompanying photographs for those records made it impossible to put them down as anything more than a strong maybe, but they were at least worth checking out. He was just starting to think he should call it a night and resume later, with a clearer head, when he finally hit pay dirt.

Jordan stiffened, adrenaline surging through him and driving back the growing cobwebs of weariness in his mind as the small, pixilated photo contained in the digital file he was now viewing stared out at him with face he recognized. _This was it. This was what he'd been searching for._ He'd seen this man during the initial raid on the cave, he was positive he had. He hadn't noticed, or hadn't remembered the neck scar, but the face he recalled.

The file gave his birth name as _Gage Ackerman,_ along with a string of aliases that didn't stray too far from their source material. According to the file, the man was mostly active overseas in countries where hiding his identity didn't matter as much as simply staying under the radar. Ackerman had run afoul of the law or been at least suspected of wrong doings in no fewer than nine different countries. There were a number of bodies attributed to him, and many more suspected than could be proved.

Addendums to the file indicated that Gage and his younger brother Aaron were US citizens who had started out as treasure hunters. They had worked several sunken ships and a couple of other similar ventures. They'd struck it rich on their very first venture and poured all of that into financing more expeditions, but none of their following endeavors met with success. Bankrupt and in debt up to their eyeballs after a string of failures, they had for a time parted company. Aaron had landed in jail for few years on an aggravated assault charge and Gage had gone off to serve in the army during the first Gulf war. Gage joined the Ranges and had even received a commendation, but was ultimately dishonorably discharged some years later after being accused of the theft and sale of antiquities and cultural artifacts. He was never tried for the crimes due to a lack of evidence, but it was the beginning of what would become his criminal pattern. After his discharge, Gage teamed back up with his released brother Aaron, only now they seemed to have decided that treasure hunting was easier when you went about it by robbing museums, historical sites and private residences in areas made vulnerable by war, unrest or natural disaster.

Jordan frowned thoughtfully as he read, trying to get a sense of these men from amidst the collections of dry facts presented in the records. Ackerman had stayed strictly small time, never making himself a big enough nuisance to draw serious attention. Intelligence services were clearly aware of his alleged activities, but the types of targets and target environments he chose meant that the odds of him ever being successfully prosecuted for most of the crimes attributed to him were slim to none. He had stayed out of politics, avoided any potential involvement with radical or terrorist groups and had kept his activities just enough under the radar enough to avoid making himself an attractive target to any of the big players on the global scene. While they chased after the big fish, he blended into a vast sea of other, minor players.

There were no shortage of opportunists like the Ackermans and they were hardly the most successful of their class. Despite a canny knack for evading getting caught and finding unusual targets that others overlooked, the brothers seemed dogged by the same mercurial pattern of big scores and equally big losses that had defined their previous treasure hunting career. They had once successfully stolen an entire private collection of costly artifacts in Indonesia after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, only to lose it to a sting operation run against the action house through which they were fencing it, and that was not the only such incident in the records.

Privately, Jordon thought that they would probably have turned a better profit if they had contented themselves with a steady string of smaller, less risky jobs and then quit when they were ahead, but he supposed that people like the Ackermans weren't in the game to play it safe. Their background suggested that for them, the hunt itself was part of the thrill. They had plenty of smaller successes to their credit, but their record seemed to indicate that they were eternally chasing that one big score that never quite seemed to materialize.

Was that what they had still been after when they came here? What could _possibly_ have enticed them to wander so far from their normal comfort zones and take the huge risk of running an operation on American soil? It made a good cover, but he'd never ascribed to the trafficking theory and it seemed even further off the mark now. There was no indication that the Ackermans had ever been involved in the flesh trade, and even if they were there was no reason to come _here_ for victims that would have been far easier to obtain in their usual hunting grounds overseas. It just made no sense.

Reading to the end, Jordan found that the reports in the file ceased around four years ago. The last entry was about some suspicious activity in Tibet, after which someone had later added a note saying that unconfirmed reports suggested the Ackerman brothers had run afoul of Chinese officials and either been killed or imprisoned. The fact that no further notes or reports had been amended since then would seem to support that supposition, except for the fact that Parrish had seen at least one of the brothers only two days ago. Clearly, there was more to this story.

Jordan checked out Gage's known associates next. Aaron Ackerman headed the list and beyond that was a large and shifting array of fellow mercenaries, fences and other underworld figures some known, some suspected, and many unknown.

Jordan printed names out for reference. It was a long list that may or may not yield anything of interest, but they would all have to be checked out. Gage's brother was the obvious place to start and Jordan was glad to find it among the files he'd already been given. He studied the accompanying picture, but it was unfamiliar to him. He did not recall seeing Aaron in the woods, although that did not necessarily mean he had not been there. The younger Ackerman's rap sheet was even lengthier than his brother's. It contained much of the same information, but was supplemented by numerous additional bodies and instances of shocking brutality that spoke of a much more violent and sadistic nature. Unlike his brother, Aaron was firmly tied to many of his crimes, in a number of different countries, including the US. In some cased, he had even been convicted. He'd been incarcerated in both Russia and Mumbai but aside from his very first stint in the US Penal system, Aaron had never served out the entirety of any of his sentences or done any very appreciable amount of time. Gage made sure of that. The older Ackerman was suspected of breaking his brother out of at least two prisons and of helping him evade the law in numerous other instances.

Jordan had hoped that perhaps Aaron's file might include more information about the four year gap in their history, but it merely contained the same note as his brother's.

Getting another cup of long-cold coffee, Parrish settled back at his desk and started searching for the next name on the list.

* * *

Scott was much improved after his short nap, and by the time Gage got everyone moving again he was feeling well enough to pull his own weight during the long, arduous climb up the dark cliff. Four of the most experienced mercenaries went first. Taking the climbing ropes with them and placing anchors at regular intervals, they laid down a trail for those who came after.

"You've done this before right... why don't you just leave the anchors?" Stiles asked the man who had been tasked with fastening him and the others into climbing harnesses.

"Tried that. They don't stay," the fellow drawled with an expressive shrug. "This place always returns to the way it was, like it heals itself or somthin', you know? Blasted some big 'ol holes in the walls around the doors one time, seein' if we could blast 'em open, but it don't work, and next time we come down, poof, all that damage gone like it weren't ever there." He shook his head and spit. "Gotta tell ya, I won't be sorry to never come down here again," he muttered.

The climb was exhausting and long but uneventful. Once the initial ropes were secured and everyone was strapped into their safety gear, there was no real danger unless another one of those earthquakes chose now to come along and was violent enough to dislodge the climbing anchors. Stiles was _just_ pessimistic enough to feel anxious about that possibility the whole way up. For once though, Murphy's Law decided to overlook them.

Wilson and Jade were strapped into their harnesses and simply pulled up the cliff by the men already at the top. Wilson was uncertain about the whole thing at first, but once he was in the air he actually seemed to love it. He grinned, and swung gleefully about like a great child on the playground, making the mercenaries curse and struggle to hold on and not let the ropes tangle.

Jade came to the cliff barefoot, apparently having given up on her unhelpful footwear for good. She would have preferred to try the climb on her own, but Gage insisted she be pulled up with Wilson. He acted chivalrous about it, but Stiles suspected he simply thought she'd slow them down.

Stiles made it about halfway up under his own power before his injuries got the better of him and a wave of vertigo made his grip falter. He must have blacked out for an instant because he didn't remember falling, or the jolt of the halter catching him. One minute he was climbing and the next he was dangling free in the halter, Scott calling to him in worried tones. He croaked out something about being okay, which was clearly a lie and held onto the rope in a death grip. He pressed his forehead against it, unable to regain any sense of balance or equilibrium as he bobbled there in the nauseatingly empty, open air.

The mercenaries at the top had to pull him the rest of the way up after that, but Stiles refused to feel embarrassed. His concussion was entirely their fault after all, and he figured that if one was going to be dragged through a magic cave full of death traps by gun toting killers, they could at least make themselves useful.

When Stiles finally reached the top, he had to spend the next few minutes hunched over his knees, throwing up. It sucked because he pretty much lost everything he'd eaten earlier, which wasn't that much to begin with. Scott appeared from somewhere and slid supportive arms around his shoulders, holding him until the world finally stopped spinning. Stiles suspected Scott had leached some of his pain again, but couldn't bring himself to complain.

The rest of the mercenaries made it to the top much too quickly as far as Stiles was concerned and he stumbled a little as he was forced back to his feet. Scott tried to offer him a supportive shoulder, but Stiles refused because Scott was limping worse than ever after the climb and had started coughing again too.

Stiles hoped it wasn't much farther to the next door because that might mean a chance to sit down again for a few minutes. Unfortunately for him, they seemed to have instead reached the longest, most difficult part of the trek yet. The tunnels twisted and turned and stretched on forever, the ground often slanting sharply up or down or giving way to long, grueling stretches of stairway that were so steep you had to practically crawl up them.

"Fucking ancient sadists and their fucking torture stairs," Stiles muttered, flopping to his knees from exhaustion as they reached the top of what felt like the five-billionth stairway they'd encountered. Then he saw what lay ahead and groaned aloud. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Please tell me we _don't_ have to go through there."

Ahead of them, the passage narrowed sharply, the ceiling dropping sharply towards the floor until the tunnel became little more than a cramped channel about the size of those colorful kiddy tubes on a playground.

Several of the mercenaries dropped their gear, putting it onto the floor ahead of them as they half crawled, half wriggled into the narrow space.

"Of _course_ we do," Stiles sighed resignedly, answering his own question. "Of _course_ we have to go into the creepy little crawly hole. What magical quest through a labyrinth built by sadists would be complete without slithering around on your belly for a little while?" He knew he was rambling, but he didn't care. There was just no way this was going to be fun and he was _tired_ okay?

"Ya know kid, the _girl_ whines less than you do," Aaron remarked, leaning against the wall beside Stiles and fixing him with one of his shark-like smiles.

Stiles glared balefully at him. "So? Your point is?"

"Cheer up," the older man clapped his shoulder with mock joviality. "We've been through here plenty of times. Why, sometimes we even make it through _without_ somebody suffocating or getting jammed up in there. 'Course, if someone _does_ get jammed there's just nothing you can do but start hacking off limbs until they get easier to push through, can't afford to block the way for everyone else, you know? Had to take this one guy out in pieces..."

" _Aaron_ ," Gage warned, coming up behind his brother and smacking the back of his head. " _Not_ helpful. Quit making up stories. He's just trying to scare you, don't mind him," he added for the prisoners' benefit.

Stiles was perfectly aware that Aaron's intention had been to frighten them because the guy was that type of creep. He was actually more unnerved by the exasperated, meaningful glare Gage had shot his brother, because something in it suggested that maybe Aaron _hadn't_ actually been exaggerating that much. A small chill trickled through him.

Gage and Aaron waited until roughly half their number had gone ahead before urging the prisoners to follow. The plan was obviously to sandwich them in the middle, probably to make sure they kept moving and didn't freeze up.

None of them _wanted_ to go into that small, dark space, but Jade offered little resistance as she was prodded towards the opening. Either brave enough to give it a try or simply too tired to do anything but comply, she resignedly crawled inside.

Stiles was tired too, but unfortunately that wasn't doing much to counter the anxious feeling in his gut as he edged reluctantly towards the tunnel. He'd spent most of middle school getting shoved into lockers and was not overly fond of tight spaces. He really didn't want to do this, but he had to, so he'd manage.

Wilson, however, was not nearly so sanguine. He wanted no part of this and made that known very clearly. Stiles had just gotten down to his hands and knees when the screaming started.

"No air! No air! Can't turn around! No! Small spaces are bad! No! I can't go James, I can't follow! They have knives and they'll get you and you're all alone and I - I should ... but I can't, I can't! I'm sorry! Please! I'm sorry! No air! No air! James!" the old man howled.

Stiles froze and turned around; realizing that seeing him start to go into the hole was probably what had set Wilson off since the old man had gotten it into his head that he was James. He tried to say something reassuring, but Wilson was much too upset to listen to anyone and Stiles realized with a sinking feeling that with his intense fear of small, enclosed spaces, there was no way they were going to get him to crawl in here.

Gage and Aaron quickly realized the same thing. Wilson tried to run and they caught him, but there was no reasoning with the man and you couldn't threaten someone who didn't understand their own danger.

"Fuck this, we'll have to just drag him," Aaron said impatiently as Wilson screamed and flailed. He lifted the butt of his gun to club the frail old man into unconsciousness, but Scott got between them.

"Wait! Wait! Let me try," Scott pleaded. Keeping himself between Aaron and Wilson and not waiting for permission, Scott grabbed the old man's trembling hands in his. Stiles saw the surge of black flow from Wilson in thick lines that crawled up the young alpha's hands and forearms as Scott drew away the other man's fear and pain, pulling it into himself.

"Look at me, look at me, Wilson. Everything is going to be all right," Scott's voice was gentle, but firm with command. Wilson stilled, hesitantly lifting his eyes to meet the boy's glowing gaze. Scott was pulling on his alpha power and his eyes had gone red.

Wilson's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Fear flittered across his face, but it didn't stay and after a moment the tension started bleeding out of his body and he relaxed into Scott's grip. "No," he whispered in a very small voice. "Not all right. I can't, you see? I can't, and James dies."

Aaron stepped towards them, but Gage held out his hand to hold him back. Wilson was obviously calming down, which he seemed to regard as a good sign. "Give them a minute."

"You _want_ to go, don't you, Wilson?" Scott whispered with dawning understanding.

Tears welled in Wilson's rheumy old eyes and he nodded slowly. "Want to follow James. Make it right. But I ... I ..."

"You're afraid," Scott murmured compassionately. "And that's okay. It's okay to be scared, Wilson. But you're strong, and you can do this. You don't have to be afraid of anything in there, I'll protect you," he promised.

"James too?" Wilson asked, gaze darting towards Stiles before being drawn back to Scott like a moth to a candle. There was something almost painfully hopeful in his watery eyes.

Scott hesitated, trying to decide whether playing along with Wilson's delusions was the best course of action or not. His gaze flicked towards Stiles, and Stiles could practically see the wheels in his friend's head turning. Scott didn't want to make Wilson empty promises. If James had ever been a real person, it sounded like he was long dead and Scott couldn't do anything about that, but if Wilson had tangled up his memory of his dead friend and Stiles to the point that he was calling Stiles James... well, then _that_ promise Scott could make.

Scott nodded slowly. "Yes, James too. We'll all make it through together. I'll be right behind you. I'll keep touching your ankle so you'll know I'm there. You just keep moving forward and it will be over before you know it. Okay?"

Wilson nodded and allowed Scott to coax him down onto the ground and towards the narrow opening. Scott caught Stiles' eyes over Wilson's back. He looked pleased, but a little uncertain at how well his own tactics had worked. _Tell me I did the right thing,_ his gaze seemed to beg.

Stiles grinned reassuringly and flashed him a thumbs up before turning around and crawling onward. Scott's alpha persuasion usually only worked on other weres, but it made sense that Wilson was more open to influence than most. He understood Scott hesitancy about potentially trespassing on Wilson's will, but as far as Stiles was concerned Scott had saved the other man from more trauma _and_ was helping him face his fears, so he really didn't see the downside. Besides, he suspected Wilson was simply responding to the intense, protective calm Scott was exuding as much as anything else.

Weirdly, as they made their way through the narrow shaft, Stiles realized that _he_ was reacting to it as well.

The tunnel quickly became so small that you couldn't even crawl and had to wriggle along on your stomach, pulling with your elbows and pushing with your legs. The flashlights of the men ahead and behind them cast only intermittent and dodgy illumination and the collected body heat of all the people jammed into this little space quickly made it uncomfortably hot and stuffy. The air felt thick with body odor, the sensation of a mountain pressing down on you was palpable and the squeeze was so tight it was _literally_ hard to breathe.

Normally, all this should have bothered Stiles a _lot_ more than it actually was. He wasn't exactly claustrophobic, but these conditions would have set _anyone_ on edge ... and yet, he felt unusually calm. An almost _content_ feeling hummed inside him, like everything was right with the world, even though it very obviously _wasn't_. It was nice, but _weird_ and unless this place was somehow messing with his head, he suspected it must be on account of Scott, somehow.

Scott was certainly doing _something_ that was keeping Wilson calm and moving. He was undoubtedly touching him and leeching his fear at regular intervals, but there must be more to it than that or else it wouldn't be affecting Stiles too. Whatever it was, Stiles doubted it was intentional on Scott's part. Maybe it was some kind of unconscious pheromones thing, or maybe he was in some way more attuned to Scott than he realized. Back at the Station, Derek had talked about Liam and the others being sensitive to their alpha's moods, but Stiles hadn't thought that could apply to him. He was _technically_ part of Scott's pack, but had always figured that was mostly an honorary designation, like saying they were friends. Now, though, the illogically contented sensation in his gut as he crawled through what could easily pass for the underbelly of hell made him start to wonder.

He may not understand how or why Scott's efforts to keep Wilson calm were affecting him, but it turned out to be a very good thing that they did. It was probably the only reason he didn't go into a full blown panic attack when the earthquake hit.


	9. If you have the Heart

**"If you have the Heart"**

* * *

Being encased in a tight earthen coffin as everything around you shook was easily one of the most terrifying things Stiles had ever experienced. Given the screams and shouts echoing from ahead and behind him, he wasn't the only one who thought so.

 _"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay,"_ he heard Scott panting in the darkness, his friend desperately struggling to suppress his own fear so it wouldn't bleed through to them. Somehow, he managed it, because Wilson's breathing sped up to near sobs, but he remained calm enough to keep moving forward, and so did Stiles. All of them moved as quickly as they could until finally they tumbled out into a large chamber with another closed door.

The tremor had already stopped by now, but Stiles' heart was still hammering in his chest. He dragged himself out of the way, flopped flat on the ground and just breathed for a minute or two. "Can we never, ever do that again?" he muttered.

"Fine by me," Scott's shaky voice near his head made Stiles open eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed. Scott sat beside him, smiling but looking completely drained. His face was pale, his skin damp with perspiration and he was trembling slightly from all the exertion he'd put himself through.

Stiles sat up and was almost immediately enveloped in a smothering and unexpected embrace from behind. "Wha - aack!" he garbled, flailing in surprise until the smell told him it was just Wilson.

"We made it, James. We made it this time," the old man said, clearly overcome by emotion as he squashed Stiles' face into his decidedly pungent overcoat.

"Um... yeah! Yay," Stiles enthused awkwardly, patting Wilson's arm and trying to get him to let go. "Go us."

Wilson released Stiles and then kissed him full on the mouth. He _might_ have been aiming for his cheek, or maybe not, but full on lip contact was what they ended up with. Stiles froze like a deer in the headlights, too stunned to react as Wilson quickly pulled away again. Muttering contentedly, the old man promptly got up and toddled off, eyes lit with a private joy that made sense to him alone. He made his way over to the wall and lay down with his back pressed against it, closing his eyes as if he considered this a good time for a nap.

Jade was nearly choking herself trying not to laugh aloud and Scott's face was probably going to break if he smiled any larger.

"Ooookay, well, _that_ happened." Stiles coughed, looking a little wide-eyed as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Do I even _want_ to know what that was about?"

"Either he's got really bad aim, or maybe James was a _special_ kind of friend," Scott suggested, trying not to laugh.

"Wilson you sly dog," Stiles muttered with a small grin. "Well, I'm thrilled he got, uh, closure, or whatever, but I do hope he realizes there are some _very_ definite ways in which I will _not_ be standing in for James."

Scott chuckled and ran a weary hand across his face. "Don't worry, I'll defend your honor if you need me to," he teased.

Stiles rolled his eyes and punched his friend's arm lightly. "Hey, good work by the way."

Scott squinted at him in confusion.

"Wilson," Stiles gestured in his direction. "I never would have believed he could make it through that, man. Much less be so... uh... _chipper_ afterwards. Good work. I'd make a joke about Jedi mind tricks, but you wouldn't get it." He gave a long-suffering sigh.

"Yeah... he did good," Scott agreed hesitantly. "To be honest I didn't know it would work quite that well either. It's kind of freaky, you know? I was afraid I was pressing too hard, that I was going to mess him up worse," he admitted a little anxiously. "But he seems okay."

"Scott, I get the feeling that in his mind, even if only for a few minutes, you just gave him a chance to re-write a part of his history that's been hurting him for years. I'd say he's better than okay _._ "

Scott glanced over at Wilson. "I hope so," he said quietly.

"Hey, did you..." Stiles started to ask Scott about what he'd felt back there, but then he stopped and shook his head dismissively. Scott wasn't going to know any more about it than he did, and Stiles wasn't even really sure what he was trying to ask.

Pushing to his feet with a small groan, Stiles patted Scott on the shoulder. "Gonna look around," he murmured, gaze already roving around the chamber in which they now found themselves. If he sat too much longer, he wasn't going to be able to get up again. By this point he'd pushed so far past the edge of tired that he actually felt jittery. His eyes ached dully, but his curiosity outweighed his weariness.

They were in a large, domed cavern. The floor was intricately carved and slanted upward like a flat hill, with the tunnel they'd just come out of at the bottom and the closed door at the top. Gage, Aaron and Reese had congregated by the door, but most of the rest of the men had shucked off their packs and taken seats against the walls. They looked tired too. That last bit of trouble in the tunnel had taken an obvious toll on the men's morale and their spirits. The low murmur of their conversations was too low to hear, but it did not sound happy.

There were three large fountains situated on opposite ends of the chamber, all three decorated with opulent swaths of realistically carved orchids and greenery. The one at the highest point, near the door, sparkled with life. Water rippled in a consistent, inviting cascade through a canopy of carved flowers before splashing down into the basin below. In contrast the other two fountains, situated nearer the bottom of the room, were both empty and still.

Once again consulting his tablet for reference, Reese was currently involved in making a series of adjustments to the ornamentation on the working fountain. The sprays of stone flowers were for some reason designed in such a way that they could be rotated and rearranged like pieces in a giant slot puzzle.

Stiles trekked slowly up the hill and no one seemed inclined to muster up the energy to stop him. He studied the floor beneath him as he walked, observing the deep grooves of the pattern carved into it and tracing them up towards the fountain above. His gaze shifted back to Reese and he immediately knew what the other man was doing.

"If you re-arrange those flowers in a certain way, they'll change the direction of the water flow, diverting it outside the fountain's basin and into those grooves in the floor instead, right?" He said as he drew even with Reese. "From there, the channels will carry it down hill into the holes in the bottom of those other two fountains and fill them up."

Reese looked up and raised his eyebrows in surprise, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger. "Yes, exactly," he confirmed. Up close, Stiles realized that the older man looked as wiped as he felt. Reese's face was flushed and his hair was damp with perspiration. Either the uncertainty of their situation was sapping them all, or the mercenaries were pressing their pace a lot harder and faster than they had on their previous trips.

"Is it, like, magic water or anything?" Stiles asked, eyeing the tempting, crystalline cascade. "I mean, if I touch it am I going to sleep for a hundred years or engender the wrath of the water god or something?"

Reese actually grinned at the question. "Well I wouldn't recommend drinking it, but otherwise you should be fine."

"Great." Stiles immediately plunged his hands under the clear flow. His palms and forearms were raw from all the crawling and scooting and his fingers ached from the earlier climb. The cool water felt wonderful. Deciding you could never have too much of a good thing, Stiles leaned over the side and plunged his head under the flow, letting the water run through his hair and down his collar. Dripping onto the floor as he pulled back, he shook water out of his hair like a dog and pushed his fingers through it to push the dripping fringe out of his face.

"I said you could touch it, not bathe in it," Reese pointed out, but he sounded more amused than upset.

"Dude, you should try it, you have _no_ idea how good that feels," Stiles told him.

Reese hesitated and Stiles could swear he sneaked a glance towards Gage and Aaron to see if they were looking before pulling off his glasses, cupping some of the water in his hands and splashing it onto his face and the back of his neck.

Stiles was grinning at him mischievously when he replaced his glasses. "See? What did I say?"

Reese rolled his eyes at the teen and went back to his work on the fountain, but Stiles noted that he didn't disagree. A few more twists and slides and Reese completed the puzzle. Sliding the last section into place turned one of the huge, arched leaves in the floral design into an effective funnel that caused part of the water flowing down the fountain to land on the floor by their feet.

They watched the water trickle into the deep grooves and slowly flow downhill, filling in the pattern on the floor as it went. Some trick of the water, the light and the angle made the water glimmer like liquid silver as brought the design on the floor to life, spreading out across the whole floor of the chamber before funneling into the two empty fountains and disappearing. The rate of the water flow, the speed of its downhill journey and the size and depth of the carving on the floor must all have been very carefully calculated because the water filled the pattern but never overflowed it.

Stiles quickly realized that at this rate, it was going to take some time to fully fill both fountains. He wasn't in any hurry to have to do any more walking just yet, but he still wondered at the inefficiency of it. "Why don't you just bring buckets and carry the water down?" he asked.

"We tried that, it doesn't work," Reese told him, gripping the side of the fountain for leverage and then easing himself down beside it on its dry side. He leaned his head back against the stone and fanned himself with his iPad. It wasn't hot in here, but he was still flushed from their earlier exertion. "You can't force it. We have to just wait and allow the process to happen the way the builders intended." He did not sound at all sorry about that.

He was not alone. The rustle of food and candy wrappers from around the room told Stiles that the other mercenaries were well aware that they were going to be here a little while and were not waiting for anyone to inform them that they could take a break. A few had their heads pillowed on their packs and were catching a nap.

Gage and Aaron had already settled on the other side of the doorway. Gage was heating an MRE pouch and Aaron was drinking something that almost certainly wasn't water out of a silver hip flask.

Stiles was surprised when he saw Jade approach them. He'd not noticed her come up the hill and his brows knit in concern when he took in her appearance. She didn't look well. She was streaked with dust from the tunnel, her hands and knees scraped and red. Her skin glistened with perspiration and dark circles had formed under feverish eyes. Either he hadn't noticed how poorly she was doing earlier, or she'd been running on adrenaline after their experience in the tunnel and was now crashing hard.

Jade trembled, clutching Scott's torn jacket around her with restless, twitchy fingers as she made her way up to the two brothers. "Hey," she said softly, flashing Gage a wan attempt at a flirtatious smile. "I'm, um... I'm having a little trouble, here. I don't suppose you have anything to help fix me up?"

Gage fixed her with a cool, assessing gaze that seemed to diagnose her condition at a glance. "Sorry, honey, I don't have what you need," he told her. "Here." He offered her his water canteen and a candy bar. "It'll help."

Jade shook her head, her arms curling harder into her middle. A heart-wrenchingly desperate, almost wild look shone in her eyes. "No, I need something stronger," she murmured in distress. She turned her imploring gaze on Aaron. "What about you, baby? Come on... help a girl out," she coaxed shakily. "You gotta have _something..._ "

Aaron gave her an openly lecherous smile, his gaze sweeping up and down her trembling body. He let his fingers rest suggestively on the buckle of his belt. "Sure sweetheart, I'm real helpful. You give me a little somethin', maybe I'll give you a little somethin'."

Stiles felt his stomach curl sickly when Jade dropped her gaze and started to fold to her knees in front of him. He wanted to punch Aaron in the face. It was disgusting to take advantage of someone who was in pain like that, and to make it worse Stiles was 99.9% sure Aaron didn't have the drugs Jade needed either and was just being a giant douche who would use her and then just laugh about it.

He lurched forward, starting towards them, but Scott beat him to it. He appeared behind Jade as if he'd materialized there. Catching her elbow in one hand and wrapping his other arm around her shoulders, Scott caught her before she could make it all the way down and carefully guided her back to her feet. "Jade, don't," he implored. "He's messing with you. He's lying. He doesn't have what you need."

Aaron laughed, taking another swig from his flask and shifting his legs apart suggestively. "Scram, kid. Girl knows what she wants. Don't 'cha, honey?" He rubbed himself. "You want some of this."

Scott favored Aaron with a scathing glare. "Leave her alone."

"Or you'll what?" Aaron drawled, cocking one sardonic eyebrow.

Jade gave a soft sob and tried half-heartedly to pull away from Scott. Her trembling fingers dug into his arm. "You don't understand," she accused, her eyes angry but her voice wobbly.

"I do," Scott whispered in her ear, wrapping his arms around her in gentle restraint. "I know what it feels like to crave something so badly your blood feels like its burning and your heart's ready to explode. The rush feels so good when it's there and the alternative hurts so much, you don't know how you can possibly survive it, much less fight it. But you _can_ fight it, Jade. You can. You're strong. You handled that tunnel, earthquake and all like it was nothing. You can do this too. You don't need him. He is messing with you Jade, and you know it. You're too smart for that, don't think I haven't noticed."

Jade sagged against him, hiding her face against his shoulder. Stiles realized Scott was right and she did know, or at least suspect, that Aaron was full of shit. She was just desperate. "It hurts," she murmured raggedly. "It _hurts._ "

"I know," Scott murmured as Jade allowed him to guide her away.

Aaron looked irritated. He started to rise, but Gage halted him by tossing an unopened MRE at his chest.

"Quit thinking with your dick and eat something. You can't drink every meal," Gage told him.

"You are a real cock block, brother mine," Aaron groused as he tore open the meal pouch.

"And you're an insufferable bastard with no sense of timing. Eat your food."

Stiles listened to them, but his gaze followed Scott and Jade as they retreated to the opposite side of the room. Jade wasn't shaking as badly anymore but she continued to lean against Scott's side and he kept his arm around her. His hand rested on the patch of bare skin at the small of her back, just below where his jacket ended and above where her skirt began.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

Scott assured her that there was no need to apologize while Stiles watched black lines slither silently along Scott's hand. The two of them sat down together by the wall and Jade rested her head on his shoulder. Her agitation and agony had eased, at least for the moment. She didn't know why, but Stiles did.

Stiles frowned and looked away. He was glad there was something that could help her; he just wished it didn't have to be Scott. He'd already worn himself out helping Wilson, and now he was at it again. Scott was extending himself much too far, and there wasn't anything Stiles could do to ease the burden. What he _could_ do was keep trying to figure out how to get them out of here. That was what he was good for. _We're the clever ones, Stiles ..._ Stiles' jaw clenched and he shoved the echo of the voice back down into the dark where it belonged.

Wandering over to the doorway, Stiles pressed his hand against it to light up the inscription above. The bowls of the fountains and the pattern on the floor also lit up, which was a lovely effect and would have made everything seem very quiet and peaceful under different circumstances.

 _"The road ahead lies through shifting flowers and flowing water. Create your path and fill the reflection fountains. Know your desires and the worthiness of your gifts. These you must have: courage, innocence and cunning. Life and honor to the worthy and death to all others. She who gives all, takes all. Make wise choices to be deemed acceptable of the path you have chosen and give reverence. She waits for you, if you have the heart to proceed."_

Stiles read the inscription above the door a couple of times. Like the previous ones, the phrasing was odd in some places and the meaning cryptic. He wondered how much of it was supposed to be a riddle and how much was just a result of translation issues, especially if the original had been fashioned as some sort of lyrical prose or poetry or something.

"Who is _she_ when she's at home?" he mused, thinking aloud.

"Life, honor, your destiny," Reese answered him. "Take your pick. It's symbolic." The older man was still sitting by the fountain nearby, now engaged in eating a chocolate bar.

Stiles tilted his head, mulling over the rest of it. "Huh, so ... okay, I guess that makes sense why buckets don't work, then," he said after a minute. "This is a timing device, like an hourglass." He nodded to himself, agreeing with his own deduction. "'Cause... yeah, _reflection fountains_ probably doesn't just mean that they're pretty and silver and glittery. Reflect, like _contemplate,_ maybe."

Stiles glanced over towards Reese. "Right?"

Reese's eyebrows pinched thoughtfully. "Perhaps," he allowed.

Stiles frowned and gestured at the wall. "Yeah, it has to be," he insisted. "I mean, it practically spells out how to solve the fountain puzzle, so this isn't about figuring out _what_ you're supposed to do and if the point was to solve the problem of getting the water from point A to points B and C, then it wouldn't matter how you got it there, would it? The point has to _be_ the waiting.

 _'Know your desires and the worthiness of your gifts.'_ It's like whoever made this place wanted anyone coming through to pause here for a while and contemplate if they had what it took to continue or something _. You must have courage, innocence and cunning, make wise choices, have the heart to proceed_... yadda, yadda," he paraphrased thoughtfully. It made sense, but something about it bothered him and he wasn't sure why.

Stiles rubbed his aching eyes, struggling to focus. He realized that Gage and Aaron had stopped eating to look over at him. Aaron was smirking like something had just struck him as funny and he saw the two brothers exchange a look that raised warning bells in his mind.

"You know, I think you're right," Reese said slowly. "Hm. Interesting. That makes sense, actually. This was probably a time for reflection and ceremonial rites."

"What kind of ceremony?" Stiles wanted to know. "Why?"

Reese wadded up his empty candy wrapper and shoved it in his pack, but didn't answer.

Stiles groaned and gesticulated broadly in frustration. "Oh come on! Can we please cut it out with the big mystery routine?! What is even the point anymore? Look, you're obviously treasure hunters, I get it, we _all_ get it. You were looking for a big payday and now we're all trapped in some magic ancient tomb or vault that I'm pretty sure is probably doing something awful like slowly collapsing in on us as we speak because you _broke it,_ which is why you're pushing to get through as fast as possible, so what is the big secret?"

"Stop." Gage's hand landed on Stiles' shoulder and he flinched, spinning awkwardly around towards the bigger man. "Don't run your mouth when you don't know what you're talking about," he warned quietly, his gaze shifting meaningfully down towards the others below and then back to Stiles.

Gage and Aaron had both come over and Stiles had to fight his instinct to back away from them.

"But I _do_ know, that's the _point,_ " Stiles protested, keeping his voice hushed so their conversation remained private, for the moment. He understood that Gage wanted to keep the rest of his men from comprehending the true extent of their danger and just how screwed they probably all were. He knew he was walking a fine line between using that as leverage to get answers and the very real possibility that Gage would simply eliminate him or do something else horrible to shut him up.

"I get it, okay? I know we're screwed, and I'm not freaking out. Well, not much," he amended. "You don't have to keep me in the dark. I know all the _working together_ crap was just bull to get us to cooperate, but I really _can_ help. Look," he ran his hand through his messy, damp hair. "Believe it or not this is not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. I'm a human member of a werewolf pack in a town that's been dealing with a serious infestation of supernatural nasties for the last few years. I know a thing or two. I'm _good_ at this stuff and I want to survive as much as you do. The more I know, the more I can help. I've already figured most of it out, what can it hurt?"

This was a gamble, but Stiles needed more information about their situation badly and "working with" their captors was the best way to get it. They really would be idiots not to leverage all possible assets in a situation this dire, and Gage did not strike Stiles as an idiot. Ruthless and dangerous yes, stupid no.

"Is everything okay?" Scott's quiet voice drew everyone's attention. He stood a few feet away, regarding with concern the threatening posture and tense body language of the two men who had hedged Stiles in between them.

"He can help too," Stiles said quickly. "You said it yourself; this place reacts different to us. If we knew why, maybe we could use that somehow. Shouldn't we be at least _trying_ to figure something that important out? If we know more about this place and who built it, maybe we'll be able to figure out what it has to do with us. You show us yours and we'll show you ours?" He smiled earnestly with far more innocence than he actually possessed, shamelessly stealing a page from Gage's book of fake cooperation.

Gage shot a thoughtful glance towards his companions and then back towards the door behind them.

"Kid's full of shit and you know it," Aaron commented, lifting his eyebrows questioningly, as if wondering why his brother was still even having this discussion.

Gage grinned wryly. "True, but they _are_ different and that _could_ matter. We're not going anywhere," he glanced at the closed door again. "Might as well have ourselves a little talk, see what we might be able to piece together, while the spirit of cooperation lasts." The look he gave Aaron was meaningful.

Aaron's lips quirked into a dark little smile of understanding that Stiles didn't like at all. They were up to something. They knew something, and it wasn't good.

Gage released Stiles and gestured for everyone to sit. "You know so much, why don't you enlighten us? Where exactly do _you_ think we are?" he challenged.

Scott joined them and as they all rearranged themselves on the ground, Stiles looked around for Jade. He saw her curled up on the ground where she and Scott had been sitting before, napping in relative peace.

"Okay, so as far as I can tell this place is like an ancient vault or tomb or something, but it's buried so deeply you can only get to it through a magic portal. You have some kind of key that can activate the portal," Stiles said, forcing himself not to glance downward as he spoke so as not to give himself away.

He'd noticed before that among the other gear snugly secured into Gage's utility belt was a small, palm sized device made of interlocking rings that was covered in ornate carvings. He wasn't actually _sure_ it was the key, but it definitely looked out of place. He used the statement as bait and watched to see if there was any reaction from the others. Gage gave nothing away, but Reese's eyes darted briefly in the direction of the object and Stiles took that as confirmation.

"That gateway gets us here," he continued. "And _here_ is either some type of ancient magical Gringotts style bank vault, or one of those old tombs with chambers of treasures and stuff. Only instead of booby traps or good old fashioned combination locks, somebody built this giant and ridiculously complex series of doorways controlled by puzzles and challenges to protect the path. I'd say it was total overkill, but then you look at things like the Egyptian pyramids and tombs and stuff and decide that maybe people just had too much time on their hands way back when. Only of course, this place _isn't_ Egyptian, judging from all the creepy Aztec art."

"Not Aztec, Mayan," Reese corrected automatically. "And it's actually more a matter of _dimension_ than _depth_..." he stopped himself quickly and glanced over at Gage. He obviously wanted to expostulate, but wasn't sure he should.

"Dimension?" Stiles pounced on the term. "So... are we like, on another planet or something, then? Was that a wormhole we went through? Oh my God, do not tell me there was a freaking Stargate hidden in the Preserve this whole time, because, _seriously_?"

"We're not on another planet," Gage said with a dry smile. "But we're not exactly on earth either. Think of it like a magic bubble."

Reese apparently found that answer about as annoyingly vague as Stiles did, because he jumped in again. "It's a dimensional plane of existence outside our own," he corrected.

"Like I said, magic bubble," Gage drawled, as if this were part of either an ongoing joke or feud.

"Magic is just science we don't understand yet," Reese retorted in a tone that suggested he knew he was being baited but felt honor bound to re-iterate his point anyway.

"Yeah, because all those superstitious cavemen were _totally_ up to dabbling in quantum physics back in 10000 BC or whatever. I buy it," Aaron jibed sarcastically.

"The Mayans weren't cavemen," Reese insisted in exasperation. "They had a highly advanced society that included complex understandings of astronomy and mathematics. Like many of the great, ancient cultures, they accomplished things that modern historians _still_ can't fully explain. They were producing vulcanized rubber 3000 years before Charles Goodyear re-invented the process."

"You think they built this place," Stiles interjected, "The ancient Mayans?"

"In California? Weren't they like, in South America?" Scott asked somewhat dubiously.

"Central America," Reese corrected. "But yes, California is decidedly too far north and it does open up some very interesting questions," he continued, obviously very invested in this particular subject. "The Mayan connection to this place is clear. It uses their numbers, their calendars, their language and concepts, so they were undoubtedly involved; but they probably did not build it alone. There is considerable outside influence present in the style of artwork and architecture found here. For one thing, the uncharacteristic realism of some of the carving work is considerably atypical. It seems likely that the source of this secondary influence comes from whatever lost tribe or culture was present in the area around the gateway in what is now California. No records of such a civilization exist, but it must have been there at one time. It's a truly remarkable find that bears much further research and study."

Stiles thought that unknown ancient North American civilizations were not really the most remarkable part of this whole thing, but he nodded anyway. This was obviously Reese's thing and he was happy to keep him expostulating about it if it got them somewhere useful.

Aaron however, was not as patient. "Yeah, and once we get the treasure and get out, you can go finance your own investigation into those lost shmucks and etch your name into history or whatever as the one who found them, blah, blah, blah. The important take-away here is that whoever they were, they knew how to build magic hidey-holes for their valuables." He stopped and made an exaggerated _oops_ face. "Ohh, sorry, there's that _M_ word again. Don't mention magic to the doc," he said snidely to Stiles and Scott. "It sets him off."

Reese sighed in irritation and there was obviously very little love lost between he and the younger Ackerman brother. "I just don't like using it as a blanket explanation for things you don't understand and don't want to try to figure out," he replied acerbically. "A few hundred years ago electric lights and computers would have seemed like _magic._ "

"I get that," Stiles said slowly. He frowned, glancing over at Scott and then back. "But I'm not so sure we should just discount magic as its own thing either. Do you really think there's a scientific explanation for stuff like werewolves and evil mind possessing demons, or dark druids and their freaky magic trees?"

Reese favored him with an annoyed look. "There must be, we just don't understand it yet," he insisted, casting a slightly uneasy glance towards Scott. "Perhaps some sort of transgenic retrovirus..." he said uncertainly, before something else Stiles had said snagged his interest. "Magic trees?" he asked.

Stiles realized he had said more than he intended and shrugged quickly. "Long story. Not important. Okay, so let's call it sci-fi then, instead of magic, if that rocks your boat. So this key you have opens a portal to... to what? Just here? Is this maze all there is to this dimension? How does that even work?"

"I wouldn't be the best person to try to explain the _how_ of it," Reese admitted. "My primary field is history and ancient cultures, not astrophysics. But as far as I understand it, yes, this is all there is to this dimension and no, this isn't the only portal that can be opened. There are other such places, other gateways. I've been through one other myself and the Ackermans have visited more." He nodded towards Gage and Aaron.

Stiles frowned in confusion, his gaze shifting to the two brothers. "Okay, I get why it's helpful to have a history professor along who understands how all the Mayan stuff works when it comes time to solve riddles, and can probably tell you which are the most valuable things to take if you have to choose," he added dryly, "but why _not_ an astrophysicist? You find the technology to open **_other dimensions_** and you don't even _think_ of trying to figure out how it works? You just go straight into grave robbing?"

Gage shrugged. " _Of course_ we've had studies done on the key and the gateways. Made a handful of trusty science nerds very happy, even though most of them admit they haven't got a damn clue how any of it works. But let's just say that most of the geeks we employ aren't as up for fieldwork as Doc here, and don't really have the balls for this place."

Aaron laughed with derisive mirth. "He shit his pants and cried like a baby, you mean."

"But you _do have_ somebody of the science-y variety you're working with? On the outside?" Stiles pressed, extrapolating from their comments that their science guy had been down here with them at least once, but must have begged out of further ventures. Stiles actually already knew they had at least two people still on the outside: the mysterious Sigerson, and maybe that other guy they mentioned, Landrow. He hoped to annoy them into telling him more, specifically how they were able to communicate with the outside world.

Gage frustrated those efforts by shrugging in clear indication that this was not a topic he was going to discuss with them. "So far we're doing all the talking here, kid. Why don't you start telling us something useful about you two? That's the point here, right?" he fixed Stiles with a coolly shark-like gaze.

"Well, I don't see anything relevant or useful yet _to_ tell..." Stiles said slowly and it was only partially a lie. He had some inklings, but nothing solid, and nothing he was going to share with the class unless he had to. "Everything was pretty normal for us until he was bitten by a crazy alpha werewolf almost two years ago," he jerked his thumb over at Scott. "Then things got weird and stayed weird. We've run into a _lot_ of different supernatural shit since then including Kanimas, Kitsune, evil Japanese spirits and crazy ass hunters, but nothing that sticks out as particularly Mayan, so I don't know what to tell you."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about this place that would help give us a direction?" Scott asked, managing to convey more sincere earnestness than Stiles could ever have mustered. "How many other portals have you been through? How did you find out about them?"

"It's a long story," Gage said with a thoughtful expression that said he was evaluating what parts of it would be most useful for shaking out any potential connection with the two teens. "The relatively short version is that some years back Aaron and I were doing some minor acquisition work in Afghanistan that led us to the residence of a tribal leader."

"You mean you went there to rob him," Stiles clarified.

"Pretty much," Gage agreed without compunction. "We were after something particular, which it turned out he didn't have. We questioned he and his family about it, but they either didn't know anything or wouldn't talk. In exchange for their lives, he offered to give us something else. He said it was the key to a secret place of unimaginable wealth, some kind of sacred secret passed down in his family for generations. We were a little ... skeptical, at the time," he admitted.

Aaron snorted. "Well I mean, come on, the guy would have said anything at that point and there he is one minute going on about it being the truth at the root of the old Aladdin legends and the next he's trying to convince us that this alleged cavern full of treasure is located way off in the mountains bordering western Tibet. I mean ... Aladdin and the 1001 Nights and Scheherazade and all that were _Arabian_ , stories, so how did that even make sense? Besides, if he knew where to find riches untold, why hadn't he gone for it himself?"

"He had some artifacts that he insisted backed up his story," Gage continued. "He gave us this old lockbox containing what he said was the key that would open the hidden cave, along with a couple of old gold coins and a huge yellow sapphire that was cut to resemble a small pear. He gave us some story about not being able to tell us where exactly the cave was and needing to take us there in person, but after a while we got him to show us the approximate location on the map and describe what he did know about how it was supposed to be found. It wasn't until later on, when we sent the stuff to Reese and he got all excited about their age and value that we realized there could be something there worth really looking into."

Stiles gathered from that that Reese must have been working with the Ackermans for a long time as some kind of artifact valuation consultant and perhaps even as a fence. He also gathered that he really didn't want to know _how_ they had persuaded the poor Afghan man to talk. These men wore civilized, reasonable faces, but their hearts were as dark as that of any creature that lurked in the night.

"Doc got so wet over the stuff that we decided it was worth a trip to check out the supposed location of this 'cave of wonders' to see if maybe it was some kind of overlooked, long lost archeological find or something. Especially after he told us how the in the original versions of the Arabian Nights, the story of Aladdin actually _was_ set in China. Who knew?" Aaron said like it was funny.

"Indeed," Reese said dryly, wearing the exasperatedly pained expression of someone who was forced to work with idiots but was just a little too afraid of them to say anything.

"What happened to that guy and his family? The one you got the key from?" Scott wanted to know. He had apparently noticed that they'd skipped past that part of the story.

There was a part of Stiles that kind of wished they would just lie about it.

"We killed them, of course. Loose ends are messy," Aaron said with the intentionally blunt carelessness of someone going for shock value. He was the kind of person who liked unsettling others, Stiles thought, the sort of sick bully who would kill a dog in front of you just to get a reaction.

Scott looked sick.

"So, after you lot of geniuses found out that Disney lied to you and you shouldn't take historical information from cartoons as fact, because, _wow_ , _shocker_ , who knew _that?_ Then what?" Stiles asked with scathing sarcasm.

Aaron apparently didn't like Stiles' tone. His body tightened and he shifted, something dark and unstable flittering behind his hard eyes. "You know kid, I'm starting to think this conversation would be a lot more productive if you were having it with my belt," he threatened with a tight, malicious smile, his hand straying to his buckle.

Stiles tensed, glaring daggers at the older man. Next to him, he sensed Scott subtly shift position and realized that if Aaron tried to carry through on his threat, his friend would intervene and things would all go downhill from there. Swallowing the biting retort that was on the tip of his tongue, Stiles forced himself to drop his gaze and stare at his lap, attempting to look contrite.

Aaron didn't seem satisfied. He started to get up, but Gage laid a hand on his arm. They exchanged a look and Aaron reluctantly settled.

Stiles thought that Gage's expression didn't say _no,_ it just said _wait._

"We searched out the location and eventually found the spot described, between two mountains divided by a narrow valley, and it turned out that the device really was a key of sorts," Gage continued as if there'd been no interruption.

"I'm going to summarize here, but what it all eventually boiled down to is that the 'magic' cave was in fact in some kind of other dimension to which the key device could open a portal. As best as the nerds have been able to figure, it wasn't a full-on 'alternate dimension' or 'parallel universe' or anything," he explained. "Just a specific, limited space that somehow existed apart from the understandable reality of our world. A bubble of some kind that was only accessible if you had a way to open the portal between the two planes. It was basically a clever, very secure hiding place made long ago by people with either magic, or a far better grip on science than we have today." He tacked the last part on as an obvious peace offering to Reese.

"Whoever built it used it like a bank vault, but then took a powder without emptying the safe deposit box, because the place was _crammed_ with treasure. There was chamber after chamber of it, even an entire underground grotto filled with an artificial garden of fruit trees made out of precious metals and gemstones, which must be where that sapphire pear came from." A strangely transcendent look had come over Gage's features; a fiercely yearning expression that went so far beyond greed it was more like addiction. Stiles saw in his eyes the same kind of almost agonized craving that he'd seen in Jade earlier.

"No magic lamp," Aaron put in sarcastically, "but plenty of other stuff. Only, getting it proved to be a problem."

"Let me guess, you forgot the part where no one is supposed to touch the treasure?" Stiles asked.

"No, we actually tested for that," Gage said with a rueful sigh, shaking himself out of his momentary reverie. "The problem wasn't touching the treasure, it was attempting to _remove_ it. There was some kind of ward on the place, like a burglar alarm, which caused the portal to snap shut the instant you tried to take something from inside of the cave out with you."

"That fucking old man _knew_ we wouldn't be able to get the treasure out," Aaron said with a darker expression. "All that cock and bull about it being a 'sacred secret', _bah_! They just weren't _able_ to loot it, and he knew we couldn't either."

"You couldn't re-open the portal from the inside anymore once the trap was activated, but you could still re-open it from the outside. Fortunately I wasn't carrying anything on our first trip back out and I'd already gone through with the key before the booby trap triggered on some of the others and we discovered the problem," Gage continued, speaking in swift, clipped tones now as if he either didn't care for this part of the story, or just felt like this was taking too long to tell.

"We spent a lot of time working on how to get around that problem and along the way we found out just how much _weird_ there really is beneath the surface in this lovely little world of ours. We went through various scientists, historians and folklore experts looking for answers and eventually ended up needing to employ the services of an honest-to-God _magician_ before we finally found a way to bypass the anti-theft system."

"I'm still sorry I never got out there to see it in person before things went bad," Reese said regretfully.

"Just be glad you missed the _bad_ part, Doc, because it wasn't pretty," Aaron said flatly.

"What happened?" Scott asked.

" _Shit_ happened," Aaron sighed. "We _finally_ figured out how to get stuff out, but it's not so easy to move a whole lot of gold all at once out in the middle of nowhere. We'd barely gotten started when the Chinese military got onto us. They came in hot and hard and confiscated everything we hadn't already shipped out. Only a handful of us survived and we spent months running and hiding from them in those godforsaken mountains. See, they'd seen us using the portal when they attacked and they were hell-bent on hunting us down and finding out how that worked. Man, do _not_ tick off the Chinese, they do _not_ fucking give up," he spat.

"Gage and I were the only ones left by the time they caught us, but we'd already hidden the key. They tried to pry the info out of us, but we didn't tell them jack shit. We managed to get away eventually and retrieved the key, but there was no going back to the cave. By that time they'd already built this fucking huge, secret compound around the whole area and were busy bringing in a ton of excavation and digging equipment, for all the good that would do them." He snorted. "They'll never find what they're looking for without the key. Hell, they've probably unknowingly destroyed the gateway by now. Last I heard, they're _still_ at work there, studying and running tests and trying to figure it out."

"During our research into defusing the trap, we'd come across information indicating that that was not the only portal of its type in existence. We used what funds we had managed to ship out before we were caught, and put that into researching and locating these other gateways," Gage said, clearly wanting to move things along. Either he thought that whole part of the story was irrelevant to their current or he just didn't like to think about it.

"The scientists who worked with us on the Tibet expedition discovered that the gateways emitted a certain kind of radiation that we could use to find other potential hotspots. There were actually a lot more than we expected. We identified another gateway in Sudan, but it was a bust. The chambers inside were all empty."

"Wait, wait, back up. So... is this like a universal key that opens all doorways, or what?" Stiles asked, trying to understand the parts they were skimming over and omitting.

Gage shook his head impatiently. "Not at first. One of the scientists we work with was able to figure out how to adjust our key's ... frequency, or whatever, so it could be tuned to match the frequency of other gateways. It's more finicky, the portals only stay open a short time and there's a cool down period between uses, but it works well enough."

"I gotta think that if we figured that out, other people have too," Aaron put in. "That's probably what happened in Sudan. Given the way those statues were smashed, I say ten to one that place was looted. I mean, if this magic portal business was so secure on its own, they wouldn't need all the extra booby-traps and security on the inside too."

Stiles thought that was actually a fair point, although it again made him wonder about the challenges they'd been through so far. With the exception of the physical tests and general endurance required, none of the tasks seemed like they would have been out of the reach of a well educated Mayan. That didn't seem terribly secure to him, but maybe it got harder further on?

"The thing about Sudan that's relevant right now is that unlike the cave in Tibet, it was laid out in a more maze-like fashion and it had _two_ gateways, one on either end," Gage summarized. "It's also where we found out that time and distance work differently in these places. Imagine our surprise when we entered in Sudan on Tuesday, spent a few hours exploring the empty maze and then exited in _Romania,_ over two thousand miles away, on _Friday_."

"I was there for that," Reese put in, sounding vaguely as if he were feeling left out of the conversation. "Actually, that's when we first really started putting together that these spaces exist outside our understood boundaries of space and time."

"We identified several other possible gateway locations, but they didn't work out for various reasons," Gage continued. "Some just couldn't be made to work with our key, and the most promising one was unfortunately in a heavily trafficked area of Greece where it would be impossible for us to operate unnoticed. This one, though..." Gage shrugged as if the answer was self explanatory. "Open Sesame," he said with a small grin.

"It was really quite surprising. If the readings hadn't gotten so strong over the past year, we probably would have taken a pass on this one. All the other sites were tied to advanced ancient cultures that did a lot of building, something conspicuously absent from the recorded history of this area," Reese explained. "But after seeing the clear Mayan influence here, I believe there is most likely another gateway, perhaps the main gateway, somewhere down in South America in what used to be the Mayan Empire, perhaps Guatemala or Mexico. Why exactly they placed a second doorway here isn't clear, but likely has something to do with whoever lived here at the time. The high level of ritual we've encountered in here, the emphasis placed on being worthy and the type of artifacts recovered thus far suggest that this was a shared holy place such as a temple or a tomb."

That answered Stiles' question about all those empty pedestals, although he wasn't sure how it jibed with his earlier impression about this place being designed for visitors fulfilling two distinct different roles.

He could easily guess how whatever plunder Gage and Aaron already found had only wet their appetite and fueled their drive for more, but he felt uneasy about how driven they seemed. Sure, there was a long history of people who thought like this, he supposed, but given the magic involved, this was a little more serious than breaking into some undiscovered pyramid and prying apart a few mummies to get at their gold jewelry, wasn't it?

The determination with which they'd hunted this place down and continued to attack it when it stymied them smacked of obsession and Stiles couldn't help feeling like this whole quest of theirs was on some level an attempt to recapture that first, unimaginable find that had been dangled before them and then snatched away.

"So, now you know our long story. What about yours? Anything in there ringing any bells?" Gage prodded, his gaze assessing and sharp.

"Wow, um, well, okay... that's a lot of information," Stiles chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. "Well, you mentioned Mexico, and we were actually in a creepy old temple down in Mexico not that long ago and had a run in with some of it's equally creepy denizens. We kind of stumbled on it by accident and they took exception to that and it was mainly a lot of fighting and running, but you, know, that could be a connection.

"You also mentioned that the readings you were getting from the Preserve got stronger recently, right? Like within the past year? 'Cause if so, maybe it has something to do with a nasty powerful spell that an evil druid lady cast in those woods around that same time. She was out for revenge and looking for power and typical super villain type stuff, but what she did brought a lot of bad stuff crawling out of the woodwork and had some lingering effects on the area. Maybe it affected the gateway somehow too. We crossed paths with her when she was on her rampage, so there's that too."

Stiles glanced sideways at Scott, silently willing him not to say or add anything to that rather incomplete and somewhat inaccurate accounts. They needed to give Gage something or he was going to be ticked off, but he didn't want to give too much just yet.

"But, then again, there's also that calendar challenge a few doors back, and I could be totally wrong about this, but unless the controls in there had a way for you to indicate dates past the end of 2012, I'm not sure how it would work anymore after this year, so maybe the signal growing stronger has to do with this place reaching its expiration date or something, I don't know," he shrugged, throwing out theories.

"Actually, you could," Reese interjected. "You'd just be starting over again at the beginning. The whole end of the world hype is ridiculous. The Mayans measured time in cycles, including large cycles, but the end of one cycle just meant the beginning of another. Although," he added thoughtfully. "It _is_ possible that they may have intended this place to end, or at least assumed it would no longer be used, after the close of the current creation cycle," he allowed.

"Well, that's one less doomsday we have to worry about then. Except for the part where whatever they intended, I think we've kind of made sure it's going to end before then anyway," Stiles observed.

 _o/o_

Scott watched Stiles, wondering what exactly his friend was up to as Gage questioned them further about the incidents Stiles had mentioned before, wanting to know more about the temple in Mexico and the Darach. Stiles answered with enough truth to make it believable, but many details he omitted and others he altered.

Thoughts and words blurred around the edges in Scott's brain. He wasn't sure whether Stiles was trying to paint a particular picture, or obscure the real one. Used to playing along with his friend's plans, he stayed silent and let Stiles do the talking.

Honestly, he wasn't sure he could have mustered up much more than that right now anyway. He'd struggled to stay with the conversation thus far, because it was important, but he was feeling a lot worse than he wanted to let on. His head throbbed and he felt an aching coldness in his bones. If Derek were here he knew he'd lecture him about overdoing things, as ironic as _that_ was.

He tried to keep up with what Stiles was saying and what lies he was telling about Mexico, but his tired mind was whirling with everything he'd just learned and kept wandering off to get stuck on trying to really believe what they'd been told.

You would think he should be used to ending up in fantastically impossible situations by now, but apparently there were still a few developments that could set him back on his heels. Finding out they were floating around in some magic dimensional bubble that didn't technically even exist was one of them. Stiles seemed to be flowing with it pretty well, but then, Stiles flowed with everything. Like his best friend becoming a werewolf, for example.

Sometimes, Scott wondered what he would have done if Stiles hadn't been so game to dive in and try to help him figure things out in the beginning? _Probably more or less what Derek had feared he'd do._

Scott's attention was wrenched away from this thought by a prickling surge of warning instinct brought on by shifts in tone and bio chemical signals of which he wasn't even consciously aware. Apparently, his exhaustion dangerously diminished his control over his instinctual responses, because he only _just_ managed to regain himself in time to keep from lunging at Aaron without actually even knowing _why._

His pulse pounding rapidly, Scott quickly stretched and changed position to cover any unintentional movements he'd just made as he attempted to understand why he was currently having an intense, visceral urge to sink his teeth into the neck of the man across from him. Sometimes being a werewolf was like going through puberty again, there were all these sudden impulses and reactions that you didn't always understand.

After a minute, his mind caught up with his instincts and he realized that Aaron was radiating aggression and Stiles' scent had gone sour with a thread of fear. He missed whatever words had passed between them, but the conversation had already moved on and it didn't seem to be anything serious. Stiles wasn't terrified or alarmed, just prudently wary.

Scott closed his eyes and breathed, firmly telling himself that Stiles wasn't in imminent danger and he needed to calm the fuck down and stop overreacting. His body didn't want to comply. Aaron carried a mix of aggression and cruelty about him that chafed Scott the wrong way, especially when he focused on Stiles. Scott's instincts insisted that Aaron was a threat. He was a threat that wanted to hurt Stiles, that _would_ hurt Stiles, and Scott needed to eliminate him, _now._

Scott screwed his hands into fists in his lap. Keeping his eyes closed, he tried to look relaxed as he let his claws bite into his palms, focusing on the pain. _Stop it. Shut up. Go away._ The wolf under his skin riled and writhed, refusing Scott's caustic attempts to force it beneath the surface. _Danger,_ it insisted, _protect._ Only _protect_ wasn't what it really meant, it meant _kill._ Scott pressed down harder, working his claws inside the wounds, punishing himself and using the pain to push the wolf away.

It wasn't as if he _didn't_ think Aaron was dangerous, he _did_ and that only made the struggle harder, but if he preemptively murdered everyone his wolf identified as a threat, he'd be leaving a string of corpses so numerous he'd soon fill up his own private graveyard.

His threat-response instinct had always been violent, but ever since Allison's death it had gone into paranoid overdrive. Any and all potential threats to his remaining pack members kicked off a ruthless desire to eliminate the source of the danger before he got another person killed. Most of the time he could deal with it like he dealt with all his darker urges, but when other factors conspired to lower his resolve and his inhibitions, like now, it became much harder. He could practically _taste_ blood in his mouth, he wanted it so bad, and that scared him.

It wasn't as if he were afraid of shifting, or anything like that. He was, by now, well acquainted with how not to lose his conscious mind when he changed, how to let his wolf to the surface without giving it control. In truth ... he enjoyed it; possibly too much. The power that hummed through him when he let his wolf peek out felt good, it felt _right,_ even. He told himself that was okay long as _he_ remained in charge; as long as his instincts answered to _him_ , and he didn't start answering to _them_.

Animals had no right or wrong. His wolf knew nothing of justice, or loyalty, or love. His instincts were that of an indiscriminate killer and he couldn't trust them. He already made that mistake. He had started to trust them, at first. He'd made peace with his inner animal after his initial struggle for control after being turned. Then he'd gone into that ice bath, and everything started changing again. He felt his power growing, ever since he broke that mountain ash circle around Ms. Blake. It was confusing because it felt good, it felt _right,_ and people said it was good, this power of a True Alpha ... yet as he grew stronger, the darkness twining around his heart grew stronger too.

He'd always known there was danger, of course he had, but he'd thought that his instincts, that the part of him he sometimes thought of as "his wolf", was wild, but not evil. He'd been fooled by its protective urges and the way it responded to his friends, his "pack". He'd thought you could train it, like a vicious dog at the clinic that might bite a stranger, but would at least respond to its own family. He'd still thought that, even when he should have known better, even after the darkness started creeping into his dreams and filling them with blood ... even after the people he started killing in those dreams became his friends ... and then Mexico happened.

Memories rippled through him, unwanted and unstoppable.

 _Kate smiling as a skull shaped mask descended over his face. The helpless, awful sensation of having his consciousness pealed back and stripped away. A powerful, inexorable force sundering him from his wolf, giving it control and feeding its rage. Kate's will pressing on him while the darkness in his chest throbbed as if in resentment, further fueling his wolf's frenzy and its lust for blood. Anyone's blood. Kira's blood. It was like he was back in one of those horrible dreams, hacking Liam to pieces, only it wasn't a dream this time. He would never forget the look on Kira's face when he stabbed her. The feeling of the blade sinking into her body, just like the Oni's had sliced into Allison, carving out death, carving out pain ... only it was his hand now..._

Scott ripped himself out of the spasm of recollection before it could trigger him and cause the exact kind of control loss he feared. Kate had shown him what happened if you let the beast have control. All those protective urges he felt, they were just excuses for more violence; a way for the wolf to try to rationalize what it wanted to him. That must be the case, because the beast clearly didn't care who it hurt or who it killed. It didn't care if it was someone you were supposed to protect ... not even if it was your own _pack_.

Kira's healing had kicked in and saved her, but that didn't change the fact that he had _intended_ to kill her. She hadn't told anyone else what he'd done. Scott knew she forgave him, but he did not forgive himself. He knew that Kate was ultimately at fault for what had happened, but he still needed to remember that moment as a warning. He could not afford to forget that no matter how protective it seemed the thing that lived beneath his skin was a remorseless killer that could never, ever be trusted.

He needed to remember that, because temptation to give into those instincts was always there, beckoning seductively with the fake promise that you could slip over the edge just a _little,_ surrender just a _bit,_ and it wouldn't be so bad. He'd almost lost it, in that fight with that army of men during the whole benefactor debacle. He'd taken so much damage and been so intent on fighting, surviving, protecting, that he'd let instinct take over and he'd almost lost himself. He'd almost torn a man to pieces, and for those few moments it had felt so incredibly, intoxicatingly _good_.

He'd never felt more alive than in the moments before he'd almost ripped another human being to shreds, and that _terrified_ him. He'd told Jade the truth earlier. He understood what it felt like to crave something you knew you shouldn't have, something that would feel so good, but would ultimately destroy you.

Like the terrible dreams where he was covered in blood and _reveling_ in the wonderful sensation of it ... only to come back to himself and find that that the lifeless body beneath him belonged to Liam, or Lydia, or Kira ... or Stiles. Peter had always claimed he wasn't in his right mind when he killed Laura, his own niece. Scott would never be sure whether he believed that or not, but the idea that something like that could happen haunted him.

Stiles seemed to find it patently ridiculous for Scott to fear becoming someone like Peter, but that was because Stiles didn't understand how hard it was for him sometimes, or how bad it had gotten since that darkness Deaton had talked about had taken root around their hearts. He didn't just want to kill Aaron to remove a threat; he wanted to tear him apart with his teeth because the beast under his skin would _enjoy_ it. Stiles saw him like he used to be; he didn't see the darkness underneath. He didn't know. He didn't know what it felt like to want nothing more than to tear someone's throat out and make them _bleed,_ make them _hurt..._

Pain sharply darted through Scott's heart. No, that wasn't true, was it? Stiles _did_ know what that was like, all too well. Scott's shoulders slumped, heartache and guilt leeching away some of the heat in his chest and his weariness deepening as he stole a sideways glance at his friend who was still talking away, fencing with monsters, as usual.

Maybe Liam was right, and he should have been strong enough to push Stiles away for his own good back when that had still been an option. That day on the bleachers, Stiles had tried to tell him he didn't know if he could do this, and Scott had tried to let him go, but Stiles wouldn't stay away and Scott didn't want him to. Instead, he'd pulled him into a world of shadows and killers and hid from him the truth that might change his mind. What would Stiles think if he ever _truly_ realized that within Scott was the same sort of darkness that had driven the creature who had stolen Stiles' body and raped his will? How could he ever trust Scott, or even look at him again, if he saw _that_ part of him?

Scott pushed the thought away, it was too distressing and he didn't need anything else wreaking havoc with his already tenuous control. He realized with a jolt that someone had addressed him and struggled to replay what had just been said in his head. He came up blank.

"Scott?" Stiles tried again, a note of concern creeping into his tone. "You okay, buddy? Um..." he tapped his forefinger meaningfully against his temple, by his eyes, clearly trying to indicate that Scott's were glowing.

Scott blinked rapidly and rubbed them. "Yeah, sorry, just spacing out. Guess I'm pretty wiped," he replied sheepishly.

A soft clicking sound drew everyone's attention to the fountain beside them. The puzzle mechanism was sliding apart on its own, the stone flowers returning to their previous configurations and sending the flow of water back along its normal course. At the bottom of the incline, the two recently filled fountains burbled to life.

"Well, timer's popped," Aaron said, getting up and rubbing his back. The other mercenaries also seemed to know what it meant because many of them were also rising without being told.

Scott felt incredibly stiff as he pulled himself upright. Stiles groaned audibly and wobbled as he shook out his legs.

"You know, you still haven't told us why you need prisoners," Stiles prodded, completely unable to leave well enough alone, as usual. "I mean, I get the werewolf thing, but what's the deal with everybody else? Don't they just slow you down? And why a kid? I mean, what, you need someone extra small, or something?"

Gage was apparently done talking, because he ignored Stiles in favor of giving a shout to the others to get anyone who wasn't already stirring on their feet and assembled.

Aaron grinned and shrugged. "You'll find out," he said, before walking away to retrieve his pack.

Scott breathed deeply, and did not eviscerate anyone.

"Oh, 'cause _that's_ not at all ominous," Stiles muttered, casting a look in Scott's direction and then doing a double take. "Whoa, hey, what's going on with you?" he whispered, moving in quickly against his side. "You're not freaking out on me, are you?"

Scott shook his head, forcing a calm he didn't feel. "I'm fine," he whispered back. "It's just been a really long day." He wasn't fine though. Something wasn't right. Ever since he'd woken up in this place, his wolf instincts had been more active and even more agitated than normal. The weaker he got, the more troublesome it was becoming.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Stiles agreed woefully. "I seriously hope they don't expect us to like, push straight through. It would be nice if there was some sleep involved, somewhere in the very near future."

"Let's hope," Scott agreed as the rest of the group joined them by the door. Someone had roused Wilson, and Jade was also shuffling towards them now, looking rumpled and bleary-eyed.

"What's happening?" she asked around a yawn.

"We have just cleared yet another level in 'Escape the Room: the Mayan Death March edition'," Stiles replied.

Jade squinted at him as if unsure whether she was too sleepy, or whether he just wasn't making sense. She frowned as if suspecting it was probably his fault.

Scott shifted uneasily; his jangled senses objecting to the way the mercenaries were crowding in around and behind them and practically pressing them up against the closed door with their mere presence. There was ... something disturbing, something _threatening_ in their scent and their body language.

 _Danger. Danger. Danger._ The wolf beneath his skin warned, clawing at his chest, biting at him like he wasn't paying enough attention. Scott was so tired. He was so sick of this unending fight. He wanted to scream at it to just stop all ready, he _knew_ they were in danger, this whole, messed up situation was nothing _but_ danger and having to battle himself every step of the way was only making it worse. _Can you not stop wanting to get your teeth into people for five freaking seconds?_

He was going to sound like Wilson soon, he thought. Talking to things that weren't there, arguing with himself like there were two forces living inside him and it wasn't really just his own inner untrustworthiness that was to blame for his turmoil.

Frustrated, Scott gripped his control tightly to him and tried to get himself to stop reading too much into everything as the door before them finally started to move. It rolled open, revealing the room beyond. This new chamber was surprisingly small and contained yet another closed door on the other side.

Scott took one step, carried along by the crush of bodies pressing them forwards and then froze as if he'd walked into a brick wall. The scents rolling out of the room hit him like a gut punch. A miasma of death, terror and pain clung to the room like a toxic mold that had leeched into the very stone itself. The scent filled his lungs like liquid horror. The warnings inside him howled into full, screaming overdrive. The angry wolf under his skin surged, and Scott lost his hold.

 _o/o_

Stiles stumbled as he was practically pushed through the doorway and he wondered what the rush was, considering he could clearly see they were facing yet another closed door just ahead. The small room was circular and there were large, spigot shaped openings spaced around it's circumference at about head height.

A shallow tub sat in the middle of the chamber and a low, thick post decorated with carved aquatic flowers was fixed in the center of the depression. Something the set-up struck a familiar note in his memory that made Stiles feel suddenly cold without knowing why. He glanced back towards Scott just in time to be met with the startling sight of his friend wolfing out.

Before Stiles could react, several of the men grabbed his arms and kicked his feet out from under him, pressing him face down on the ground and holding him there. Jade yelled in protest as she was given the same treatment. Stiles heard a familiar roar and several more shouts and then Scott hit the ground beside him, convulsing under the prolonged contact of two electric prods that were digging ruthlessly into his body. Scott tried to fight, but the electricity kept him immobilized, his whole body jerking like he was having a seizure.

In that moment, Stiles realized why the sight of the pillar and basin had filled him with alarm. He'd seen something similar before, in the carved reliefs on the walls. He knew, now, why the mercenaries needed prisoners, and what had happened to at least some of those who had come this way before them.

The words over the door came back to him with a new, sickeningly clear meaning and everything made a horrible kind of sense. It wasn't a euphemism. It was a double-entendre.

 _... if you have the_ _ **heart**_ _to proceed._

 _Oh. God._


	10. The Abyss Gazes Back

**A/N: Yeah, so right about now is when I need to adjust the rating upward just to be safe. I think you can all guess why, given the way the last chapter ended, but please be warned that something very terrible, sad and gruesome happens in the beginning of this chapter and we lose one of the OCs. Please skip past the start of the chapter or don't read the chapter at all if this could be problematic or a trigger for you. Also, be forewarned - you really don't want to get too attached to any of the OCs in this story, there's a reason I listed this under "horror". Please don't hate me. _*hides*_**

* * *

 **"The Abyss Gazes Back"**

* * *

Stiles struggled and bucked as he was held flat against the floor of the death chamber, but there were too many strong hands holding him down and he couldn't get free. A knee pressed hard between his shoulder blades as someone knelt on him, nearly crushing the air from his lungs.

He could only watch in helpless disbelief as Gage and Aaron dragged Wilson forward, into the room. Confused rather than frightened, the old man resisted and Aaron clubbed him on the back of the head. He crumpled in their arms, unconscious, which was perhaps a mercy, because their next act was to drag him over and bend him backwards over the pillar, just like in the image Stiles had seen on the wall.

"No! Stop! Stop it!" Stiles shouted at them to no avail.

Beside him, Scott heaved against the men piling on to hold him down. "You don't have to do this!" he roared, fighting to hold onto his shift, despite the electricity streaming painfully into him.

Two more stun batons struck him, hitting him with so much combined electricity that it rendered him temporarily unconscious. Scott slumped, senseless, against the floor.

"Actually, we do," Gage replied. Holding Wilson in place he calmly slit his throat, expertly twisting the old man's head around to let the arterial spray gush down into the basin below.

Aaron pulled on a pair of elbow length surgical gloves and proceeded to use a large hunting knife to remove their victim's heart. He didn't bother trying to battle through the breastbone or protective ribs, instead cutting in low, below the sternum and jabbing upward. With the skill of someone who had done this procedure before, he pushed his hand up into the wound and extracted the desired mass of tissue.

Nausea roiled in Stiles' stomach and burned like bile in the back of his throat, but he couldn't look away. Nearby, he could hear Jade screaming and crying and getting violently ill, but he was frozen in a kind of stunned haze.

There was no hesitation or mercy from the mercenaries. Their movements were disturbingly practiced and efficient and they got the job done in a matter of minutes.

 _How many times had they done this?_ Stiles wondered in horror.

The flow of Wilson's blood finally slowed to a trickle and Aaron presumably placed the bloody heart into whatever niche had been prepared to receive it as an offering. Stiles couldn't see that part of the room very well from his vantage point on the floor. All he could see was Wilson's limp fingers and the slow drip, drip, drip of blood splashing into the basin.

The door ahead of them opened.

The prisoners were pulled to their feet and dragged out through it. Scott was just starting to regain groggy consciousness. Jade was still screaming and struggling. Stiles stumbled along numbly, looking over his shoulder with wide, stunned eyes.

They'd left Wilson draped over the pedestal. They'd just _left_ him there. As Stiles watched, he saw the whole basin, body and all, slowly sink down into the ground. The doors on both sides of the room slid shut then, sealing tightly and blocking his view.

He heard a rush of water from beyond the door and numbly supposed that the fountains must be resetting. The spigots he'd noticed on the walls were probably some kind of cleaning mechanism. The chamber had an automatic wash cycle after each sacrifice, so it would be all shiny fresh and ready for the next one. _How lovely and convenient._

Conscious again, Scott shook off the pain of his recent electrocution and wrenched himself free of the men holding him. They reached for him and he snarled at them, fully shifted and looking pissed as hell. The men wisely backed off.

Pulled out of his dazed state by the sound, Stiles started struggling again too. He twisted and elbowed the man nearest him sharply in the gut.

Gage stepped in before the situation could deteriorate any further. "Whoa, whoa, easy. I understand you're upset, but getting all riled up and making us hurt you isn't going to do anyone any good," he warned in maddeningly reasonable tones.

Scott's eyes burned red and dangerous. He was angrier than Stiles had ever seen him and looked like he was holding onto control by his fingertips. "You killed him!" Scott growled in a low, menacing voice that was at the same time raw and filled with uncomprehending pain. "You just _killed_ him!"

"Yes," Gage said calmly. "Because we had to. That's the only way that door will open. He didn't suffer, and I don't believe he even understood what was happening, if that's any comfort."

"Yeah, it's really not," Stiles bit out harshly. "He was a helpless, harmless old man and you _cut his fucking heart out._ "

"I think we've covered already that it was necessary," Gage had the gall to sound impatient. "If we didn't sacrifice him, we could not proceed and then we would all die. Life's a numbers game, kid; deal with it."

"Yeah, but it isn't the first time you've been through this doorway," Stiles accused. "This is what you need us for, isn't it? It's why you took all those people in the first place! Wilson's not the first person you've sacrificed, is he? And there were no lives on the line then, only your own fucking greed. I can't believe you're all fucking _okay_ with this!" He looked around at them in bald disbelief and disgust. His gaze landed on Reese. " _You're_ okay with this?" he repeated venomously. He didn't know why he expected him to have more of a conscience than the others, maybe because he seemed less of a trained killer. You didn't really need training to be a killer, though, did you? Just apathy.

Reese had the decency to at least appear uncomfortable. He looked away quickly. "Human sacrifice held a place of honor in Mayan culture," he murmured, as if retreating into his own brand of detachment. "It played an important role in times of crisis, ceremonies of dedication and acts of worship. It was the ultimate sacred act, often practiced upon prisoners of war who were captured for that purpose."

"Like us, you mean? And that makes it okay, because _they_ did it?! How about you spare me the _fucking history lesson_!" Stiles was shouting now, veins pulsing and neck muscles straining. He twisted and writhed against the men holding him, kicking and struggling. He was livid. They all were ... well, okay, maybe Jade was more hysterical than anything else, but Stiles couldn't fault her for that one bit. He felt rather like screaming and crying and clawing at people right now too. This wasn't his first encounter with human sacrifice, which said something pretty sorry about the world as a whole, actually, but it _was_ the first time he'd seen it happen in front of him. His chest burned and ached. He was so sick of this kind of shit.

" _ENOUGH!"_ Gage shouted, followed by the deafening bang of a gunshot. The harsh sound cut through the rising clamor, making even Jade quiet down into soft, hiccupping sobs.

For a moment, Stiles wondered if Gage was crazy, firing into the air in close quarters like this, with so much danger of ricocheted... then he realized he hadn't. He'd used Scott to absorb the bullet, shooting the young werewolf through the chest at point blank range. A few inches higher and he'd have put it through his heart.

"Scott!"

Scott pressed his hand over the wound and coughed blood, but he kept his feet, and his shift.

Gage looked duly impressed and the gun in his hand swiveled a few feet over to press against Jade's temple instead. That proved an effective way of gaining and holding everyone's attention. "It's a normal bullet. He'll be fine. Now listen up, because this is important. I know what just happened is distressing, but we _didn't_ bring _all_ of you here to be sacrifices. Some of you we need for other purposes. So pull it together and pull your weight, or if and when we _do_ need another body, you'll be next in line."

"Why should we believe anything you say?" Scott growled, his eyes blazing. There was a dangerous light in his eyes. Scott watched Gage as if the gun at Jade's head was the only thing keeping him from gutting the man.

"You all want to die right now, then?" Aaron asked pointedly, and suddenly a dozen gun barrels were trained on the prisoners.

For several long moments, Scott seemed to be struggling with himself, torn between logic and instinct. There were no moves he could make that wouldn't result in potentially getting his companions killed, and apparently that truth finally won out because after a minute he reluctantly stood down.

Stiles also stopped struggling, although his body remained tense. He fixed Gage with an angry glare. "You _can't_ just kill us now," he pointed out acerbically. "You have to be _alive_ to be a sacrifice; we're no good to you dead."

Aaron grinned at him. "Maybe, maybe not, but you sure as hell don't need kneecaps, or fingers, or ears, or dicks, for that matter. You got a _lot_ of expendable body parts, kid. Trust me, I'm perfectly fine with removing a few until you feel more cooperative; or just shooting you all in the legs and dragging you with us."

Beside them, the door slid open again, revealing the now clean and empty sacrifice chamber beyond. The doorway to the fountains remained shut, however. Dimly, Stiles supposed you'd probably have to wait out the fountain timer again to open it from the other side. Had the groups people who came through here in the old days done as they had and brought only one sacrifice for this doorway, or was the timer outside not merely meant to give time to prepare for the impending sacrifice, but also as a way of spacing out individual parties within the group so that they proceeded in separate intervals and faced the road ahead alone from this point on?

What about if you didn't _want_ to go on? With the fountain door shut, there was no visible way to backtrack from here. He wondered whether the door had some other means of being opened from this side, or if another sacrifice would need to be made to trigger it. Had the mercenaries needed to kill someone here both coming _and_ going on their previous trips? He didn't want to think about it.

The ground started rumbling and the walls groaning as another earthquake began. It was longer and even more violent than the previous ones. Whatever was wrong with this place, it was getting worse. Just at the moment, Stiles had a hard time bringing himself to care. The tremor evoked no fear in him this time. Some part of him knew it was just the shock talking, and he'd feel differently in a while, but right now he couldn't help wondering if maybe it wouldn't be better if this cursed dimension just fell in on them and took their captors with it.

"Okay then, let's keep moving." Gage got them all walking again as soon as the quake was over.

They separated the prisoners now, keeping them spaced apart from one another, probably to discourage any thoughts of trying something. Stiles saw Aaron walking with a pistol in his hand and felt sure it was the one loaded with wolfsbane rounds. Everyone seemed wary and on edge. Except Stiles, who just felt numb and sad.

He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and felt his eyes prickle weirdly. He tried to comfort himself that at least Wilson had been happy at the end, and then scoffed at himself scornfully for being such a giant baby. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. _He hated this. He hated it so much._

A couple of turns further down the passage, and they found themselves in another circular hub room with eight different tunnel mouths.

Aaron grabbed the back of Stiles' collar and pushed him against the wall to trigger the lights they had all come to expect by now. Stiles didn't resist, letting his cheek rest against the cold stone and feeling strangely weary.

Different lighted symbols appeared above each doorway, but there was no inscription, no instructions. Stiles didn't have time to see all the symbols before Aaron pulled him off the wall and shoved him onward again. The mercenaries still clearly knew where they were going and Stiles tried to memorize the symbol of the tunnel through which they passed, just in case.

He wondered what lay down those other passages. Dead ends, or deadly ends? How many lives had these men possibly expended in brute force trial and error before they found the right path? No wonder they'd needed so many expendable people.

A while later they came to yet another hub, this one containing only three archways. Stiles touched the wall without prompting this time and found each door labeled with a different flower. This time, there was also an inscription.

 _"You are brave, but are you wise? Poor choices lead to poorer choices. The path of the warrior is red with blood but purity is a pleasing gift. Only one who walks with the footsteps of innocence may open the way."_

The mercenaries were looking agitated now, a low buzz of whispered words adding to the already tense atmosphere.

"Okay," Gage said, raising his voice to get everyone's attention. "As most of you know, this is where things get a little sticky and we're going to have to get creative. Two of these passages lead to death traps, the third is passable, _but_ only to certain people."

"You don't measure up, and bam, the walls crush in on you like a pancake when you reach the end," Aaron supplied helpfully.

"When someone matching the right criteria goes through, they're able to open the door at the far end, which disables the trap. As long as the door is held open, everyone else can make it through safely," Gage continued as if his brother hadn't interrupted. The explanation was obviously for the prisoners' benefit, since everyone else had been through here before.

Stiles didn't like where he suspected this was heading.

"Criteria, like ...?" Scott asked suspiciously.

"Innocence," Stiles supplied the obvious answer, gazing up at the inscription. " _'Only one who walks with the footsteps of innocence may open the way'_. Oops, sorry Gage, guess you and your merry band of murdering misfits are right out of luck."

A blond haired man behind Stiles spoke up. "Look, I'm all about creative solutions, but how the fuck are we supposed to improvise ourselves a kid we don't have?"

" _This_ is why you were taking children?" Scott asked, anger flaring in his voice.

"Can't get much more innocent than that," Gage pointed out. "But look, innocence takes many forms, right? Perhaps we should be asking ourselves - innocent of _what?_ Are we talking virginity, here?" He looked around at the group dubiously, as if sensing that was not going to be a helpful solution. His gaze settled questioningly on Reese.

Stiles threw up his hands. "Oh my God, again with the virginity? What is with all the magical prudes?!" Everyone ignored him.

"I doubt we've got anyone here matching that criterion either," Reese said dryly, "But I'm actually not so sure that's it. Recent studies suggest that the Mayans may not have placed as much emphasis on the concept of virginity within their ceremonies as was previously speculated. For instance, in Chichen Itza, what were once thought to be the remains of sacrificed virgin girls have in fact turned out to be the remains of young boys."

"In the context of the rest of the inscription, it could be referring to being innocent of, like, blood guilt, like murder, killing, that kind of thing," Stiles suggested. " _The path of the warrior is red with blood but purity is a pleasing gift,_ " he quoted. "They mention warriors and blood like it's the flipside of the purity they're talking about."

"Mm," Reese nodded in agreement. "I was thinking the same thing. The bit about choices could make sense in that context as well."

"Yeah, given that you have to have _killed someone_ just to get this far, if you didn't have somebody in your party who sat out on that happy little activity, you'd be shit out of luck now," Stiles agreed sarcastically. He frowned uncertainly, though, feeling there was something more there that he was missing.

"Well, it's a bit of a guess, but childhood, sex and the taking of life are some of the most multi-culturally prevalent measures for innocence. We might as well try the easiest one first and get more creative if that doesn't work," Reese suggested to Gage.

Stiles agreed that it was probably their best shot, but wanted to smack the older man for his _"send in the cannon-fodder"_ attitude. Clearly, Reese knew no one was going to ask _him_ to be the one to test the theory. Of course not, he was too self assured of his own value as an important contributor to the group's potential success.

Aaron cast a considering look at Jade, seeming to think her the most obvious candidate. Jade had sunk to the ground as soon as the men pushing her along had halted. She'd stopped crying but was shaking violently, hugging herself and rocking. She'd been in a bad way before Wilson's violent death, and the shock had clearly done her no favors.

"Hey, you, girly," Aaron kicked her foot. "You want me to fix you up? Got something you can do for us..."

Jade didn't seem to even register his words. She started and shrieked when he touched her, scrabbling away from him and pressing herself back against the wall. Sobbing, she curled herself into the smallest ball possible.

Aaron made a disgusted sound and turned away. "Forget it; no way I'm trusting you to not flake out on us, anyway." Grabbing Stiles by the arm as he walked past him, Aaron dragged him to the mouth of one of the tunnels and pushed him towards the opening. "Okay, kid. You're up."

Scott tensed, his hackles rising the moment Aaron touched Stiles. His friend's reaction did nothing to mitigate that feeling.

Stiles balked, grabbing the edge of the tunnel when Aaron tried to force him forward. "No, wait, I can't!" he protested. Scott could hear his friend's heart starting to race.

"Oh yes, you can," Aaron growled, grabbing him by the collar and swinging him around. He slammed Stiles' back into the wall beside the tunnel, pinning him with a hand on his chest. "And you _will,_ or we're gonna have that conversation I promised you," he threatened, tugging meaningfully at his belt with his free hand.

"No, no, you don't get it. I don't mean I _won't,_ I mean I _can't_!" Stiles insisted urgently, squirming in the big man's grip. "I don't fit the criteria!" His voice dropped, a slight hoarseness creeping in around the edges. "I'm not innocent, okay? I'm not."

Stiles' scent was an unhappy, astringent mix of fear and shame and Scott ached for him. He knew Stiles was thinking of his time under the Nogitsune's control and of the deaths the dark spirit had brought about with his hands. Stiles was _not_ responsible for what that creature did while wearing his body, and if this weird, magic innocence sensor thing _really_ worked, it would know that too ... but Scott wasn't ready to take the chance that it wouldn't make that distinction.

"I'll go," he volunteered.

Aaron looked over at him skeptically. "Right. Because out of this group, _you're_ the one that hasn't killed anybody. The _werewolf_ ," he scoffed.

"Scott," Stiles' voice was very small. "We don't _know_ that that's all it's looking for." The unhappiness in his scent had increased. He clearly didn't want Scott have to be the one to go.

"I haven't," Scott insisted, holding Aaron's gaze before his eyes flicked to Stiles. "And if something does go wrong, I've got the best chance of getting out before the trap springs. I'll go."

Stiles clenched his fists and looked away.

"You telling us the truth, kid?" Gage asked, fixing him with a piercing look. "Because I've heard some stories about how you get those red eyes."

"Well I guess you haven't heard all of them, then," Scott retorted. "Why would I lie to you about something that could get me killed?"

Gage shrugged, obviously having no answer for that. He seemed reluctant to risk losing their werewolf unnecessarily, but ultimately nodded. "All right, go. You're going to find a long hallway leading to a door. If all goes well, you just open the door and hold it open until the rest of us are through."

Scott nodded.

Aaron was still holding Stiles against the wall and his friend gave him an unhappy look as he passed. Scott gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile and forged ahead.

Stiles wrenched angrily away from Aaron after Scott disappeared. This sucked. It _sucked._ He hated that he was once again stuck behind, watching Scott venture off into danger. He hated that he couldn't go in there himself because of that stupid demon and what it had stolen from him.

Several long minutes dragged by, the atmosphere in the room growing increasingly tense.

"Hey!"

Stiles jerked at the sound of Scott's voice, but thankfully, his friend was only shouting to be heard across the distance that separated them.

"I'm through! I've got the door open, you can come!" Scott called to them.

Stiles exhaled in relief. He swore, at this rate he was going to be like, the only teenager to ever die from a heart attack.

Aaron grinned and shook his head, shooting his brother an amused glance. "The _monster_ passed the _innocence_ test? Go figure."

"You might want to wipe the blood and guts off your hands before you start throwing the _monster_ word around," Stiles said with acid in his voice. He started for the tunnel, but Gage held him back, nodding for the others to go ahead of them. Once everyone else was in the tunnel, Gage and two of his men brought up the rear with Stiles and Jade.

Stiles realized they were being brought through last to make sure Scott wasn't tempted to close the door on them too soon. He wished Gage wasn't quite so forward thinking; it was a pain. It was so much easier when bad guys were idiots.

They were in the long hallway, a few feet from the doorway when the next quake hit. It was immediately clear this was going to be the worst one yet. The initial jolt felt as if someone had violently yanked the floor out from under them and everyone went sprawling. The ground lurched and rolled like the deck of a storm-tossed ship and the walls quivered. Chunks of the ceiling dislodged from the darkness above and crashed down around them.

The doorway shuddered, the gap closing as Scott struggled to prevent it from slipping away from him as he was tossed about. He threw his back against it and braced his feet on the heaving floor, heedless of the rocks crashing down around him as he fought to keep the exit open for them.

Scrambling to his feet, Stiles grabbed Jade's elbow and the two of them half ran, half stumbled and crawled out through the doorway with Gage on their heels.

Ahead of them, several feet of the floor suddenly dissolved. The stone didn't crack open or fall away, it simply flickered and melted, black rock turning into a blacker void. Stiles reeled to a halt on instinct, his arms pin wheeling and forcing Jade to stop with him. Scott and Gage nearly slammed into their backs but Scott's quick reflexes stood him in good stead. He pulled up short, throwing his arm out across Gage's chest to push him backward while his other hand flew forward to tangle in Stiles' shirt, trying to balance him.

The man ahead of Stiles and Jade was not so lucky. Either unable to stop in time or unaware of the danger, he hit the void spot and disappeared, leaving behind only a scream of agony.

Stiles' chest heaved, his heart racing. The man hadn't _fallen._ He had _dissolved._ Edging sideways, Stiles pulled Jade around the jagged hole, pressing against the wall to keep them both away from the edge of the blackness. "Don't jump it!" he warned Scott and anyone else who could hear him. "Go around, not over!"

More blank spots were opening all around them now, the ground melting as the ceiling fell. Everyone was running and dodging. Where exactly they were all trying to run _to_ , Stiles didn't know, but with the world disintegrating around them standing still wasn't really an option.

Ahead of them, one of the mercenaries ignored Stiles' warning and instinctively tried to jump a jagged tear in the floor that opened before him. It was only a foot or so across, he should have been able to clear it easily, but the instant he was over the spot, his shape twisted, distorting sickeningly for a moment before he too vanished with only an echoing scream to mark his passing.

Gage swore loudly behind Stiles. "Stay away from the cracks!" he shouted, his voice booming through the chaos. "Do not go over them! Whatever you do, stay on solid ground!" Grabbing Stiles' shoulder, the older man pushed him quickly to the side, moving both of them out of the path of a falling chunk of black rock.

It seemed forever, but was in reality only a minute or two later that the devastating quake finally ceased and the construct of reality around them slowly stabilized.

Stiles stumbled to a wary halt, clutching Jade's arm hard enough to bruise as he gasped for breath, scanning the tunnel around them. No more chunks fell from the ceiling and no new rends appeared in the floor, but he shifted about uneasily, unable to shake the terrifying certainty that one was about to open under their feet at any moment.

The mercenaries' lights were scattered about, leaving ominous swaths of blackness that might be cracks or might just be shadows and Stiles felt trapped by uncertainty, hesitant to move without knowing.

Jade's cheeks were flushed, her face pale and eyes wild. She clutched onto Stiles' shoulder for balance and sobbed for air. Stiles held onto her protectively and struggled not to give into the cage tightening around his chest. He wasn't sure where anyone else was, and felt like he was standing in a nightmare, unsure where solid ground ended and which shadows were solid enough to trust. His head buzzed and his breath was coming too fast.

Scott appeared beside them, tense but not breathing quite as hard as Stiles or Jade. His wolf was riding the surface and he immediately took up a protective stance at Stiles' elbow, as if he could somehow shield them from the destruction of this slowly crumbling reality. Stiles knew he couldn't, not really, but he felt a lot better anyway and some of the unwanted panic in his chest started easing.

The rest of the mercenaries had also stopped by now and were starting to regroup around them, bringing with them a welcome return of illumination and visual clarity. Stiles saw that Gage, Aaron and Reese were all still with them, as were most of the others. He thought they were missing at least three people, but he wasn't sure.

For a minute there was a general air of relief as no further destruction occurred and the mercenaries re-gathered themselves. Then they turned their flashlights on the tunnel ahead of them, and relief turned to grim dismay.

The passage ahead of them was wrecked. A vast stretch of darkness engulfed most of the tunnel. The entire left wall and the majority of the floor and ceiling were gone. All that remained was the right-hand wall and a thin stretch of floor and ceiling that clung to the edge like a crust, stretching away for as far as their flashlights could penetrate.

Stiles' heart plummeted as he looked at that thin strip of solid ground. It was barely large enough to stand on, although maybe they could make it in a single file. _Maybe._ _If_ it didn't disappear completely somewhere further ahead, where they couldn't see.

As disturbing as the narrow path looked, the destroyed side of the tunnel was worse. Much worse. It was eerie and unnatural and no one seemed able to look at it for more than a few moments at a time.

It wasn't as if the floor had fallen away into some deep cavern below. The missing portions did not form a hole, or a cliff, or any other kind of visual that their minds could understand... there was just _nothing._ It was the very definition of a void, the darkness so pervasive that it swallowed up even the beams of their flashlights and gave nothing back. It was impossible to see through, or to comprehend. It was more than darkness. Darkness, you could understand. This was something that defied understanding. It was _nothing,_ and it was terrifying.

Stiles felt his chest hitch and his head start to spin as he looked at it, a horrible kind of vertigo taking hold. It repulsed and fascinated him at the same time. There was something so very _wrong_ about it all that his instinct was to look away, to run from what his mind couldn't understand, but his curiosity was too strong. His gaze shifted away automatically, as if sliding off the surface of something slippery, but he made himself look back, trying to understand what lay beyond.

"Holy Mother of God," someone murmured.

"What is that?" Jade's voice quavered, taking on a hysterical edge as she gazed at the unnatural void. "What the _hell_ is that?!"

"Sigerson was right, this dimension is _literally_ crumbling; like a bridge with one of its anchors cut," Reese murmured in a mix of horrified shock and fascination, sneaking dazed glances at the darkness before having to quickly turn away from it, like someone looking at the sun. His words were meant for Gage and Aaron, but everyone heard him.

"Shut _up,_ " Gage snapped at him, but the damage was done. Alarm rippled through the group and suddenly multiple voices were speaking at the same time, asking questions and demanding answers.

Stiles was only peripherally aware of the clamor. It melted away from him, inconsequential and meaningless as he struggled to comprehend what he was seeing in that strange, infinite space. It was nothingness, and yet it was a nothingness that brimmed with ... with _something._ Something he wasn't equipped to perceive. He realized, as the abyss seemed to grow and expand before him, that it wasn't _nothing_. It was _everything._

It seemed to him like the stuff of worlds, the building blocks of the universe. It was terrifying and beautiful and he wanted to understand it, but his mind recoiled, screaming on an instinctual level that it was unnatural and impossible. His lizard brain warned of the danger his conscious mind was too incautiously inquisitive to heed and he felt suddenly that he was looking at something he shouldn't be seeing, something human brains were physically not designed to process. He knew then that it would devour him, but it was already too late. He had looked too long and he was caught, no longer able to tear his eyes away or escape the burning nothingness. _This was what madness looked like,_ he thought as it seeped into him like ice.

Everything dissolved. Direction no longer existed. The ground opened under him, and he fell.

A strong hand caught him, wrapping around his chest and yanking him back. Scott's hand clapped over his eyes, replacing the unnatural darkness with a more tangible and familiar one. Stiles felt the solid shape of Scott's chest against his back, the warmth of the hand pressing against his eyes and the faint prick of claws against his temple. The sensations were tangible and concrete, something he could understand amid the nothingness surrounding him. He clutched at the points of contact, at the surreal sensation of something solid as he tumbled through space. His lungs contracted spasmodically, as if they'd only just remembered their function. He gave a small sob and gasped for air he hadn't realized he lacked.

"Don't look at it," Scott whispered and Stiles shuddered, the sensation of his friend's warm breath on the back of his neck unusually clear and vibrant, like it was the most real thing he'd ever experienced. He could have wept because he wanted that reality so much, but he no longer knew the way back to it. He was drowning and couldn't tell where the surface lay anymore.

" _Stiles_ ," the word was a worried plea, but it echoed inside Stiles with a ring of command that bypassed his spinning mind and tapped directly into much deeper and more primal instincts. _Come back to me._ The unspoken demand tugged at him, offering a tether to reality that Stiles seized like a life-line. Turning away from the destructive beauty of the void and the nothingness that was everything, he responded to his alpha's call and came back to him.

Reality took shape around him again in a rush and Stiles blinked against Scott's hand, seeing through his fingers that the illusion of falling had only been in his head and that he was, in fact, still standing where he'd been a moment ago.

"Don't look," Scott whispered again and this time Stiles nodded shakily against him.

"Yeah, yeah, got that," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm good, thanks. I'm good now." He turned his head and Scott released him.

Very carefully _not_ letting his gaze stray towards the void, Stiles shook his head and blinked. "Well _that_ was disturbing," he muttered, rubbing his face and swallowing convulsively. "How'd you know not to look?"

Scott raised his eyebrows at him incredulously. "Dude ... something doesn't want to be looked at that much, you _don't_ look at it," he said, like it was common sense. Which... okay, maybe it sort of was when you put it _that_ way.

Still feeling shaky, Stiles looked around at the others, trying to process the mundane things he was seeing and what they meant. Gage seemed to have calmed the others down for the moment and the mercenaries were shifting their gear around in preparation for the dangerous journey ahead of them. Stiles noticed that all of them were unconsciously but studiously not looking at the void.

Suddenly, he realized he _didn't_ see Jade. He looked around quickly. "Jade?" he called and Scott stiffened beside him in alarm. "Jade!"

She wasn't in the circle of light and Stiles felt his stomach clench. He and Scott quickly split up, picking their way carefully across the broken floor as they looked for her, their calls attracting the attention of the others.

They finally found the young woman huddled against the wall a few dozen yards back up the passage, sitting on the floor with her back to them. They called to her but got no response. The ground between them was littered with dark slashes and they had to move carefully.

"Hey, Jade? What are you doing?" Scott asked, crouching down when he reached her. She still didn't respond. "Come on, it's not safe," he urged gently.

She turned burning eyes on him then. " _Safe?_ " she spat, giving a small, choked laugh. Pulling away from him violently, she turned her head tightly against the wall. Her shoulders were hunched, as if she were hiding from some unseen enemy.

That was when Stiles realized she didn't have her back to _them._ It was the abyss that she was hiding from. She'd retreated back here because she was trying to get further away from that unnatural broken area of the tunnel. Which... probably made her one of the smarter people present, Stiles supposed, although unfortunately there really wasn't anywhere they could run.

Scott reached for her in an effort to comfort, but Aaron appeared behind Jade just then, grabbing her by the collar of the jacket she was wearing and yanking her brusquely upright.

"You shouldn't run off, sweetheart, you could get hurt," he growled, obviously in a bad humor over their current situation and the fact that they'd had to waste time looking for her.

Jade flinched when he spun her back towards the void and gave a little cry, fighting him as he dragged her back towards the horror she wanted to escape. "No!" she screamed, flailing and clawing at him with her fingernails. She'd already been forced through far too much. With her body wracked by the symptoms of full blown withdrawal and her mental and emotional state in tatters, she had nothing to shield her against the horror of that terrible nothingness.

"Wait! Jade, it's okay... Aaron, wait!" Scott protested, darting across the patchwork floor after them.

Grunting in frustration, Aaron struck Jade, but she was too far gone for that to stop her.

Stiles stepped into the man's path, ignoring the part of his mind that told him that was probably a really bad idea. "Hey...!"

Thoroughly pissed off and struggling to hold onto Jade as she drew bloody gouges on his arm, Aaron shoved Stiles roughly in the chest to back him off. Stiles stumbled backward and nearly tumbled into one of the cracks. Scott grabbed his arm just in time, pulling him back to safety.

Scott whirled on Aaron, but it was too late. Jade tried to pull away and Aaron spun her to the side, slamming her into the wall just as Scott reached them. Jade's head connected hard and she went limp in his grip, unconscious.

Scott snarled angrily at him, but Gage had reached them by now. He got between his brother and the angry werewolf, his side-arm raised in warning. "Don't do it, kid, this isn't a normal bullet in the chamber and I _will_ drop you. Aaron?" He barked the last question sharply over his shoulder.

Aaron pressed his fingers to Jade's neck and then slung her over his shoulder. "She's fine, just unconscious," he said as if annoyed by the big deal everyone was making out of nothing. "No way we were getting her through that under her own steam, anyway," he added, nodding towards the narrow pathway ahead with a hint of defensiveness in his tone. "She's had it, Gage."

Scott held his ground, but didn't come closer or make any more aggressive movements.

"All right, then we'll carry her," Gage said, giving Scott one more wary glance before lowering his gun and stepping away.

As it turned out, Stiles wouldn't have minded being unconscious for this part of the journey himself. There was some uncertainty about whether or not the narrow ledge was actually a safe zone or not, and Gage nominated Stiles to be the one to go first and find out.

That did _not_ thrill him, but Stiles did it without protest because he knew Scott would be their other option. Indeed, Scott was already trying to volunteer in his place anyway, but Stiles saved them all the argument by simply gripping the wall and plunging in before he could think too much about what he was doing. It was his turn to take some of the risk, he wasn't going to keep letting them use Scott as their guinea pig for everything.

Gage followed Stiles, presumably so he could turn the others around if the path failed and Stiles was suddenly sucked to a gruesome and untimely demise. The rest of the group strung out behind them in single file and they all inched tortuously along the precarious pathway.

To say the journey was nightmarish would be an understatement. Stiles had to grip the wall tightly for balance, shuffling sideways along the narrow ledge. Gage was at least helpful enough to keep his flashlight trained on the ground ahead of Stiles' feet, but watching his feet meant constantly having to struggle to focus on the ledge _only_ and not the nothingness that lurked at the periphery of his vision.

Knowing what was just behind his back, close enough to reach out and touch, close enough to suck him into oblivion if he even leaned back too far, was the worst part. Stiles might actually have found this easier to handle if he'd been on a real cliff with the tiny tops of trees or buildings way far below him. The void was scarier.

Stiles made it through by not thinking about the situation as much as possible. He made it through like he'd made it through so many other things in his life, by simply refusing to quit. What had Ms. Morrell told him that once? _When you're going through hell, keep going?_ Ha. If he got out of this and ever saw her again, he would have to ask her if she had, like, a gift for prophecy or something, because seriously, that described, like 98% of his life these days.

Stiles would never have thought he'd be so happy to see something so simple as a wall, but when the path ahead suddenly widened out and Stiles could see the both sides of the passage again in the beam of Gage's flashlight, it was a beautiful thing.

He hurried forward, breathing easier as he found solid ground again. There were a few gaps to be avoided, but for the most part this side of the break was much less damaged than the other side had been. He moved back to make way for the others coming through, trying to watch for Scott and Jade's arrival without looking at the void. Scott appeared first.

Jade was at the very rear of the procession, the two men supporting her having to move slower because they were forced to scoot along in tandem while holding her dead weight pinned to the wall between them. It was a thankless, dangerous job and Stiles was surprised to realize that Aaron was the man in the lead. It seemed like something the brothers would have foisted off on disposable underlings, but looking around at the distinctly rattled group of men, Stiles realized they probably hadn't been able to find anyone else willing to take the risk.

Gage had lost a lot of control now that everyone understood that the possibility of being trapped in this labyrinth was not the only thing they had to fear. The fact that there was apparently an unknown time limit on how long they had to even try to find a way out worsened all their odds considerably. Adherence to the chain of command only went so far in the face of this kind of danger and already Stiles could sense an _every man for himself_ attitude taking root.

Aaron was about two feet from safety when Jade woke up. They were holding her back against the wall, meaning she was facing right into the void when her eyes fluttered open. The poor woman went ballistic with terror. She started screaming and thrashing without understanding the danger, unbalancing both of the men holding her.

Gage lurched forward, heedlessly close to the deadly edge of the void as he reached out and grabbed onto the shoulder of his brother's tactical vest in an effort to steady him and pull him to safety.

Aaron tumbled out, pulling Jade with him and the three of them landed in a tangled sprawl on the floor of the tunnel. The other man who had been helping carry Jade wasn't so lucky. For a moment he teetered on the ledge, trying to catch his balance. He over-corrected, tottering too far backward. His arm flew out in an instinctive effort to find purchase. It crossed over into the empty place ... and disappeared. The man shrieked, toppling backwards. Then the rest of him was gone, too.

Animated by terror, Jade scooted across the floor, gasping as she clawed at the ground in an effort to get away from the horrible nothingness. Finding her feet, she fled blindly up the passage ahead of them. She didn't get far, forced to stop when she reached the edge of the cone of light. Too afraid to venture into the dark, she sank back to her knees, her shoulders shaking.

Scott followed, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and trying to comfort her. She was in a bad way, but finally did calm enough to get up and walk with the others as they moved on.

Stiles thought you couldn't possibly blame Jade for what had happened back there, but there was an increased air of hostility towards her from some of the mercenaries all the same. He suspected they were just scared and angry in general and looking for an outlet.

Everyone seemed in a hurry to put the void behind them, but after it was out of sight and the floor had become unbrokenly solid again, the mercenaries halted long enough to once again handcuff their prisoners.

Stiles didn't realize what they were up to until the cool metal was already sliding around his wrists. "Whoa! Hey, wait, what's this for?" he protested, jangling the short chain between the cuffs in irritation. "What if there's another cave in or something?! This will _not_ help."

No one bothered to argue with him, or to explain. They simply moved out again, leaving Stiles to wonder unhappily whether this was some kind of nonsensical payback, or if there was some deeper and more worrisome reason they were all being restrained again.

The adrenaline rush of their recent escape slowly wore away to leave Stiles cold and exhausted, and after a few minutes he cared a lot less about being bound and a lot more about the fact that they were still moving. His legs felt weak and his injured head was aching again. He felt ill and tired. He wished they could take a break, but their captors pressed them on, either too afraid to stop or driven to reach some unknown goal.

Restrained by the charmed cuffs, Scott couldn't physically help Jade anymore and she was visibly flagging. Seemingly unaware of their captors' growing irritation and approbation she passed through alternating fits of crying, begging and sullen silence, her trauma and withdrawal making her both mercurial and blind to her own danger.

Scott and Stiles both attempted to calm her to little effect. Scott tried to explain to Gage that he could help her if they un-cuffed him, but either Gage thought he was just angling to be let go or, more likely, he simply didn't care at this point. Everyone was struggling by now, exhaustion, hunger and fear shortening tempers and creating a dangerous, combustible atmosphere.

Reese was visibly lagging, so wiped he was almost stumbling. "Gage..." he panted, struggling to keep up and draw level with the other man's determined stride. "Gage... maybe we should rest, before...?"

Gage shook his head decisively, glancing back over his shoulder towards the three prisoners. "No," he said simply. "Better to keep moving, get it over with. We'll rest on the other side."

Stiles and Scott exchanged worried glances. Neither of them liked the sound of that.

Stiles scanned their surroundings as they walked with as much alertness as his overworked, sleep deprived brain could manage. He was trying to keep an eye out for anything that might be somehow helpful to them, but nothing presented itself. The only thing they came across were more wall carvings. There were no statues now, just a long, continuous frieze running along both walls of the passage. The progressive scenes told some kind of story, but they were moving too quickly and Stiles was too tired to be able to piece most of it together. One thing seemed clear, though. Perhaps because it was something he'd already begun to suspect.

"I think I figured it out," he whispered softly, for Scott's ears only. "What's different about us, I mean. Why the lights come on for us and not the others. Have you noticed all the creepy tree imagery in here? At first I thought it was just part of these folks' overall obsession with plant life and creepiness in general, but look." He nodded at one of the images they were passing which depicted what looked like a bunch of people and half-leopards worshiping or honoring a tree. The next frame showed people with knobby, stake-like protrusions sticking out of their chests, wearing elaborate headdresses and working various wonders. They looked grotesque to him, but were obviously meant to be figures of honor in the depictions.

"I thought there were a lot of wounded people in the artwork at first, but that's not it. Those aren't weird looking spears; they're supposed to be _trees_ , like that first statue back in the beginning. They have trees coming out of their hearts, and I think it's symbolic," he whispered. "I think these pictures, they're about the Nemeton, or something else like it. We knew it was old, well maybe it's _really_ old, like sequoia old, or maybe it had an ancestor or something. I bet that its presence in what we now call Beacon Hills is what _actually_ drew whoever built this screwed up place to put a doorway there, and _that's_ why this place reacts to us."

"Because of what we did?" Scott asked quietly.

Stiles nodded. "We sort of ... sacrificed ourselves to it, right? The whole scar around the heart deal? I don't get how it all works exactly, but as far as I can see that connection is really the only big difference between you, me and the rest of everyone else who has been through here lately. It's got to be the reason. Plus, whoever built this place seems to have an entirely unhealthy obsession with hearts and sacrifice."

"That's what you didn't want them to know," Scott realized. Stiles nodded and Scott glanced around to make sure no one was listening in. "Is there any way we can use it to our advantage, do you think?" he whispered.

"Maybe, I'm just not sure _how_. Let's keep our eyes open. I haven't been able to come up with any plans on how to give these guys the slip yet, but we really, really need to try to find one. Listen, Scott, when that time comes we _need_ to make sure we take the key with us. It's that funny looking palm shaped thing on Gage's belt and there's not going to be any way out of here without that."

Scott nodded. "I don't know how we're going to pull that off either, but sooner would be better than later. I have a bad feeling about wherever we're heading."

Stiles sighed, feeling incredibly weary. "That makes two of us."


	11. Devastation

**A/N: WARNING - this chapter is very painful both emotionally and physically. Although I already raised the rating last chapter, this is the one that made me think I probably should. Another really awful, awful thing happens at the beginning of this chapter that's made worse by the way it goes down and the angst for all involved. So read at your own risk. Seriously, I made myself cry. This is a pretty dark chapter, there is OC death and also some very serious non-fatal injuries and harm inflicted later on. If any of these things could be a problem, please, please, please don't read this.**

* * *

 **"Devastation"**

* * *

This time, Scott knew _exactly_ what the potent smell of terror and death meant the moment the door opened and it rolled out to meet him. There had been no trick to opening the door at the end of the long hallway, it had simply slid aside for them as they approached, beckoning them into the enclosed circular chamber like a welcoming spider.

The inside of the room was different. There was no post, no basin. Instead there was a giant lotus flower engraved on the floor and a deep, well or pit with thick, upraised sides. Still, he knew without a doubt that this was another sacrifice chamber. Hundreds of people had died here over countless years to open the door that stood so innocently across the room from them.

This, he realized, was why they'd been cuffed again.

The mercenaries tried to repeat much the same procedure that had worked for them last time. Gage pulled Jade forward, while the others moved to restrain he and Stiles as they had before. This time, however, Scott was ready for them, and they had no comprehension of what that meant.

He shifted, pulling his wolf to him and letting the power of it surge through his body, electrifying his muscles and hyper elevating his senses. His wolf was on board and didn't fight him for once. Probably because he was more or less ready to do what it wanted to a certain extent. Both sides of his nature were ready for a fight and he benefited from the strength of his human and wolf wills working in tandem instead of clashing against one another. Both sides of him agreed that he needed to protect Jade and Stiles. Both sides of him agreed that these men could not be allowed to kill any more... no matter what it meant he had to do to stop them. Maybe this was how you fell. How you started doing bad things for good reasons, but he couldn't care about that now. He didn't have the luxury.

Pain flared at his wrists, the silver cuffs burning as the wards bit into him, trying to repress his change. He simply pushed back harder. More power welled up inside him as it was needed, answering his call and flooding into his body. Challenge made him stronger. Pushing his limits, made him stronger.

With a roar, he jerked apart the supposedly werewolf-proof manacles, warping and snapping them off his wrists like they were made of tinfoil.

Shouts erupted as the mercenaries reeled back and went for their weapons, the scent of surprise and terror blossoming in the stale air. His wolf reveled in it, loving their terror and the way it screamed _prey_ in his senses. They scattered and he wanted to _chase._ He could hear their hearts pounding, the blood rushing in their veins and his teeth ached to find flesh, to taste and to tear. The darkness was there. It was so strong, it felt _so_ good.

 _This isn't about them! Jade and Stiles are what matter._ Scott tried to hold onto that, struggling not to slip too far over the edge upon which he balanced amid the surging flow of instincts, power, and aggression rushing through him. _Jade and Stiles,_ he told himself harshly. He would kill to protect them if he had to, but not because he _wanted_ to. He couldn't kill because it felt good. He _couldn't._ That would make him worse than Gage and Aaron.

Blood dripped from the gouges he'd torn in his own wrists when he broke his bonds, but that didn't slow Scott down. The men near him never had a chance to go for their weapons before they found themselves flat on the ground.

Aaron went for his wolfsbane loaded pistol, but Scott expected that and got to him first. His claws raked Aaron's face and sunk into the man's shoulder around the joints in his body armor as he tackled him to the ground, sending the gun flying from Aaron's hand. Someone shot Scott in the back with a normal gun, but his only reaction was to turn and pounce on the shooter, claws flashing.

The room was too small and the chaos too great for the men to risk firing their automatic weapons. They would only hit each other and the mercenaries were too well trained for that, despite their growing panic. They attempted to get at Scott with their stun batons but he was a blur of furious motion that they couldn't contain or bring down.

Scott's blood was up, and there was no stopping him. He downed a man who was trying to grab hold of Stiles and then back flipped over the head of another, landing next to Jade. She was just as afraid of him as everyone else right now and shrank from Scott when he reached for her.

"Jade, come on! Run!" he urged.

Hearing his familiar voice, even roughed as it was by his shift, seemed to enable her to see past the frightful visage he presented enough to trust him. She grabbed his hand, following as he propelled her back out into the tunnel.

o/o/o/o

Stiles got a certain amount of satisfaction out of the mercenaries' terror and disbelief when Scott popped his bonds. They seemed to think something like that shouldn't have been able to happen, but that was because they didn't know about Scott McCall's habit of being able to break through restraints others couldn't when his determination and need were great enough. Mountain Ash, charmed manacles, whatever, his friend was da bomb.

Stiles ducked under the grasp of one man and drove his bound hands into the stomach of another. He winced and danced sideways, remembering too late that most of them were wearing body armor. He clouted the next man that lunged at him upside the head instead and that worked better.

His mind whirled, trying to figure out some way that this _didn't_ end with them all dying. He wasn't having any luck. Scott was unstoppable, which was _awesome_ , but their odds still sucked. They had no escape route, nowhere to run and no way out. They were trapped behind a door they could never open, because they could never willingly pay the price. There was only so far they could run before they ran out of tunnel. Then, the mercenaries would catch up with them and they would either be dragged right back here, die fighting, or kill everyone else in self-defense and end up stuck down here until this place shook itself apart.

All their options were bad, but there was nothing else for it. They couldn't let Jade be sacrificed, so they'd just have to make the best of it and see what happened.

Stiles tripped a man trying to draw a bead on Scott and then felt hands close on his arm. They were gone again just as quickly as Scott knocked the man down and then headed for Jade. Content that she was in good hands and that Scott would see to getting her out, Stiles turned his attention to following his own earlier advice and acquiring the one thing they would need if they were to have even the _slightest_ chance of ever getting out of here.

It took him a moment to spot Gage amid the chaos. When he did, it was because the older man very nearly ran into him. Stiles dodged and twisted, fingers catching on Gage's thick utility belt as he tried to grasp the snap clasp of the pouch securing the key. The snap gave and his fingers brushed the smooth, ancient object, but blinding pain exploded through the back of his neck at the same moment, knocking him to his knees on the floor. Consciousness wavered uncertainly in his grasp.

He didn't remember being hauled upright, but that's what must have happened, because the next thing he knew he was blinking through a sea of yellow flashes and floating black amebas, and his back was against Gage's chest in a horribly familiar manner. Something cool was at his temple and Stiles felt sick in a way that had nothing to do with fear. _No. No, no, no... not again. Please not again._

He willed Scott not to stop, not to turn around, not to see him... but of course, Scott did. Through the flashing floaters in his vision, Stiles saw his friend pause in the doorway with Jade, just long enough to look around for him, to make sure he was with them... only, he wasn't. Their eyes met, and Scott froze.

Stiles' stomach sank. Guilt and frustration flooded him, along with a horrible sense of déjà-vu as he found himself yet again standing with a gun to his head, being used as leverage to force his friend's cooperation. It was like back in the woods all over again and he hated it. He hated it with every fiber of his being. He was not the freaking damsel in distress, okay? This sucked and it was very unfair. It wasn't fair that _he_ was what hurt Scott. _Every. Fucking. Time._

"I'd reconsider your course of action, if I were you. I can still use his heart even if he's been shot first, so we don't have anything to lose," Gage warned. Stiles felt the barrel of someone else's automatic weapon dig into his side, all the guns now pointing at him making it very clear that Scott would never be able to take them all out before _one_ of them shot him. Frustration bubbled in Stiles' gut like destructive acid. _To hell with this!_

Rearing back and head-butting Gage in the mouth, Stiles wrenched his body forward, trying to get free or trying to get himself shot, whichever worked first. Either outcome removed him as leverage. "Run! SCOTT, RUN!"

Unfortunately, Stiles was too weak to put much power into the blow and Gage wasn't so easily caught off guard. He grunted but didn't let go. Even _more_ unfortunately, he didn't pull the trigger, either. Instead he struck Stiles upside the head with the handle of his gun. Stiles' legs buckled and he sank to the floor, the multiple weapons trained on him following. Gage's hand tangled in his hair, keeping him upright and holding Stiles on his knees at the other man's feet. He jerked Stiles' head back against his leg, pressing the gun against the top of his skull.

Stiles slumped against him, too dizzy to move. "Just run, Scott," he murmured miserably around heavy and uncooperative lips. " _Go_. Just go, _please_." His unfocused eyes begged his friend to listen.

"You could do that," Gage told Scott, intentionally digging the barrel of his pistol into the bruised cut on Stiles' temple, making him whimper involuntarily. "You're obviously capable of making us not want to follow you too quickly. You _can_ run, but I advise you take a deep breath first and consider what you _really_ think you're going to accomplish, here.

"You go back that way," Gage nodded towards the tunnel behind Scott, "and you're going to run smack back into the broken place in the tunnel. You think she's going to be able to handle that again?" He indicated Jade with his chin. "But, okay, for the sake of argument let's say you do. Let's also for the sake of argument say we _don't_ just follow you down there and _shoot_ you while you're trapped on that ledge with nowhere to go. Let's say you _actually_ make it to the other side... then what?

"There is no way out back there. You'll simply be trapped and you'll either die from privation, or when the next section of tunnel collapses. Now, maybe right now that seems like an okay option to you, like it's the more _noble_ path, especially if you're all going to die anyway. But here's the bottom line, kid: beyond this point, there is only one more doorway that we've already unlocked, and it does not require a sacrifice. Maybe there won't be any more after that, maybe there will. I don't know, and that's the truth. I've heard your kind can sense lies, if that's true then you know I'm being straight with you. No one else may need to die, after this. Now, this place seems to like you boys, so I had intended to save you both for last and only kill you if we had no other choice. You, right now are not leaving me a choice. The simple fact of the matter is that one of you has to die in order for us to move forward, and right now, this kid is what I have to work with." Gage gave Stiles' hair a little tug, pulling his head back harder against his leg and tipping his chin up a little.

"So, you can let us have the girl, or you can both run off and probably get yourselves killed, and I'll use this kid... Stiles, right? I'll use Stiles for the sacrifice instead. Only this time, you can be sure he will be fully conscious when we dig out his heart. He'll get to feel the whole thing," Gage promised.

Stiles blinked his prickling eyes rapidly. He was scared, and that was wrong. He didn't want to be scared. He wanted to be stronger than that.

Scott was still frozen in the doorway, his expression horrified and torn, like someone was asking him to scoop his own eyeballs out... only, no, Scott probably would have had a lot less problem with that. Sacrifice himself, yes, but someone else? No. Stiles understood that. Scott couldn't possibly just _give_ Jade to them to be slaughtered. He wouldn't want them to kill Stiles either, of course, but his hands were tied. There was nothing they could do. Even if Scott attacked them, there were too many people standing by to pull the trigger, it would only win Stiles a quicker and less painful death ... which, okay, actually that didn't seem like a bad thing right now. Except the mercenaries had had time to regroup, and they'd probably get Scott with one of those anti-werewolf rounds this time, so no. It was better if he just left.

Gage dragged Stiles over to the well and threw him down on the wide lip. Two of the other men immediately grabbed his arms, wrenching them over his head, bending him backward over the edge and pinning him firmly in place.

Stiles twisted, but there was no leeway in their grip. No escape from what was going to happen. His heart hammered and he clenched his eyes shut, ready, and yet not ready. He knew Scott couldn't do what Gage was asking of him. His friend didn't have that kind of choice in him, and that was... that was okay. Stiles was okay with that. Scared shitless, but okay. "Go," he croaked. "It's okay, Scott, just go."

"I can't," Scott's raw, aching whisper made Stiles' eyes spring open in surprise. Scott was still standing in the doorway, but he had let his wolf slip from him, his shoulders slumping in defeat. His eyes when they met Stiles' were full of anguish. "I can't, Stiles."

o/o/o/o

Scott didn't know which hurt worse, the shock in Stiles' eyes, like he'd _really_ thought Scott could _ever_ walk away and just let these men carve him open, or the knowledge that by saving Stiles, he was betraying someone else he'd promised to protect.

It was wrong, so wrong, but there were no right choices now. He wanted to save everyone, but he didn't know how and if they forced him to choose ... there was only one choice he could make. God forgive him for his selfishness, but the truth was, he would always choose Stiles.

"Jade, run," Scott begged in a whisper, knowing she'd never make it alone, but wishing for a miracle. None materialized. Jade didn't make it two steps before the nearest mercenaries were on her, grabbing her and carrying her back past Scott's motionless, tortured form as she struggled and kicked, screaming, sobbing and pleading.

She begged them to stop, she begged for help and Scott flinched, every word feeling like an arrow punching into him. He was tense to the point of trembling, his clenched fists dripping with his own blood. His wolf seethed and writhed beneath his skin, telling him to kill everything that moved and he hated it almost as much as he hated everything else right then, because he _wanted_ to. He _wanted_ to kill them all, but even if he managed to succeed he would still fail, because he might be able to kill a bunch of them, but he couldn't do what mattered most. He couldn't do it fast enough. Stiles and Jade would both still die.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he whispered, tears streaming down his face. He could hardly breathe. He felt like he was being physically gutted; like it was _his_ heart they were taking. This was unforgivably wrong and there was no way he could ever make it right.

He took a step into the room and several guns immediately swiveled his way, one of them belong to Aaron, who was bloodied but on his feet again and looking like he would _love_ an excuse to pump Scott full of wolfsbane. Scott frankly didn't care. He couldn't hurt any worse than he already did.

Scott held his hands out in a gesture of surrender, his gaze fixing on Gage. "Please, don't hurt them. Don't hurt either of them. You need a sacrifice, take me. Take my heart, I won't fight, I promise," he volunteered.

"Noble of you, but no thanks," Gage said, taking hold of Jade's arm. Stiles was pulled up and shoved into the corner, kept under close and very zealous guard. Everyone was incredibly wary of Scott by now, so they were very careful to keep their only point of leverage over him tightly covered.

"Why not?" Scott shook his head in incomprehension, pressing forward despite the warning reactions from the men covering him. "Gage, it doesn't matter who you kill, right? Come on! Just take me instead! _Please!_ " he begged desperately.

Aaron pressed his pistol to Scott's head. "You want to die so much, I could arrange that," he murmured venomously, too soft for his brother to hear. Blood trickled from his torn cheek into his mouth and he spat it out, onto Scott.

"I told you. You're more potentially useful to me than junkie girl," Gage said dispassionately before turning to Jade. "Sorry, my dear, it's just a matter of being practical," he told her. Then he shot her in the head.

Scott jerked at the unexpected action. Until that moment, part of him hadn't really accepted what was happening. He had still been looking for some way to get them all out of this, somehow. He had still believed it could happen. Until now. He lurched forward a step on instinct, but it was already much too late.

Jade crumpled in Gage's arms and he dropped her against the side of the pit, working swiftly to extract her heart before her blood flow settled too much. Since Aaron was busy watching Scott, he took care of the whole, gruesome procedure himself this time, finally placing the lump of heart matter into an alcove guarded by a carved animal before pitching her body down the well.

Scott had never felt so helpless, or so lost. He couldn't come to terms with what had just happened and what he'd done. What _they_ had done. Impotent rage and pain flowed through him in hot, sickening, guilty waves. Everything in him was howling and he wanted to shift. He wanted to let his wolf out, let it have control so he didn't have to feel anymore. He wanted to make these men _suffer_. He wanted to kill them all. The only reason he didn't, was kneeling in the corner between four guards, looking ill, horrified and dazed.

Scott ground his claws ruthlessly into his palms and when that stopped working, he jabbed them into the side of his thigh instead. If he lost it right now, Stiles would die, and protecting Stiles was the only thing that mattered now. He'd failed utterly at everything else, but he could not fail at that. There would be nothing left of him if he did.

o/o/o/o

Stiles wasn't sure if it was how many blows to the head he'd taken lately, or the overwhelming trauma of what had just happened that was messing with his motor skills. Whatever it was, he nearly stumbled into the doorframe as the mercenaries dragged he and Scott out of the sacrifice chamber and into the hall beyond.

They were keeping the two teens apart now, to better control them probably, but Stiles could see that Scott was stumbling too in a way that had nothing to do with his injured leg. His friend's eyes were blank and empty and he was moved like he was in shock.

Stiles tasted salt in his mouth and realized it was from the tears leaking down his cheeks. He wasn't sure when he'd started crying, but he felt no desire to stop. It didn't matter. So very little mattered right now. Jade's death and Scott's empty eyes haunted him. The fact that it was all his fault, _again,_ haunted him even more.

 _"You know why I chose you, Stiles? **You** and not any of the other better, stronger hosts I could have taken?" _ The Nogitsune's taunting voice echoed in his memory. _"Because we're kindred spirits, you and I. Why do you **think** you didn't even notice me for so long? Deep down, you know it's true. We're the clever ones, Stiles, the tricksters who always have a plan. We're the devil on the angel's shoulder, slowly corrupting everything we touch. We bring chaos and pain, whether we want to or not. It's inevitable. When you've lived as long as I have, you realize that. We are what we are. You might as well enjoy it and make it your own. It's so much more fun that way."_

Stiles had told himself that that was all bullshit. That the evil spirit had just been messing with him, trying to screw with his head and inflict pain as it enjoyed doing. The problem was that it had _been_ in his head, it had known him intimately and known all the places to cut to make it hurt the worst. It could go through his memories and build a completely compelling case for its lies, until he wasn't so sure they were all lies anymore. Especially now, afterwards, as time went on, and it was gone and yet ... yet he still felt echoes of its dark desires and pleasures; still found himself sometimes wanting the things it had wanted. Like it had woken in him an answering darkness that _was_ very kindred to itself. Like maybe that really _was_ why it had chosen him.

After Allison, he'd promised himself it wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't be the reason any more people he cared about got hurt. Only, it _had_ happened again, and now Scott had been backed into this horrible corner, forced to do something that could destroy a part of his soul, because of _him._ The Nogitsune had been right after all, it _was_ inevitable.

Stiles wanted to throw up. He hadn't really liked Jade, but he certainly hadn't wanted her to die. He'd wanted her to be okay. He'd wanted to get her safely out of here. Not that that made any difference, now.

Gage pushed him around a corner and Stiles felt an icy hot fist starting to squeeze in his stomach, replacing pain and guilt with a cold, bitter fury. He was at fault here, yes, but certainly not alone. The _real_ culprits were the ones who had put them into this situation in the first place. He hated these men with a powerful hatred. Not only did they kill cruelly and indiscriminately, they had used him to force Scott to feel complicit in their barbarous act. Stiles would never, _ever_ forgive them for that.

He thought it wasn't possible to hate them more than he did at that moment, but he was wrong. He would soon come to hate them much, much more.

The tunnel widened around the next bend and the mercenaries came to a halt, allowing Stiles to sink wearily to his knees. Scott was pushed down to kneel next to him. Apparently they weren't keeping them apart anymore. Stiles stared down at his cuffed wrists, unable to look at Scott. Unable to face what he'd done to him. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

Stiles wasn't sure why they'd stopped, until he saw several of the men breaking out med kits and realized they needed to treat those who had been wounded in the altercation with Scott. He took way more pleasure than he should have in noting that that pretty much included _everyone_ to some extent, except Gage who seemed to have managed to avoid any direct hits, and Reese who had taken no part in the fight, choosing instead to stay as far away from the enraged werewolf as he could get.

Scott had not been pulling his punches. The men would all survive, but they had been badly knocked about and there were some serious slash and puncture injuries to be dressed. It would have been worse if they weren't so heavily armored. As much as the vindictive part of Stiles wished some of the men _would_ die, he was glad it hadn't happened like this. Scott didn't need any more on his conscience right now, even if it would have been totally justified self-defense as far as Stiles was concerned.

Aaron had a row of punctures torn through his shoulder and three long, nasty gashes down the side of his face, stretching from temple to chin. Stiles thought it would probably scar if he lived long enough. Then he and his brother would be a matching set, like evil murdering psychopath salt and pepper shakers.

Once his shoulder had been bandaged, Aaron stalked over and cuffed Scott sharply on the back of the head. "You fucking animal. We should put a fucking muzzle on you, freak," he cursed at him. Crouching in front of Scott, Aaron shoved the barrel of his gun under the werewolf's chin, forcing his head back. "Did you do anything to us?" he demanded, cocking the gun. "Are we going to change? You better be fucking straight with me. I know what your red eyes mean, bitch."

Scott glared at Aaron, intentionally flashing those red eyes at him, his expression painted with a fury Stiles rarely saw in him. "I didn't bite you, so you'll be fine," Scott retorted icily, sounding like he wished he'd done a lot more than just bite the man. "You're not going to turn from a few _scratches._ "

Stiles rather hoped that was true. He was pretty sure Kate was the exception rather than the rule, but he was a lot less sure about everything these days.

Aaron hit Scott across the face with his gun. Then he hit him again. And again.

"Hey!" Stiles shouted at him.

Scott caught Aaron's wrist before he could land a fourth blow, squeezing hard enough to cause pain before letting him go.

Aaron said nothing, but silently wheeled around and struck Stiles instead, sending him sprawling. Stiles really wished people would stop hitting him for a little while. His head felt like a well used soccer ball. He collided with the floor and everything went kind of fuzzy and vague. He was aware, but dazed. Nothing seemed to be working quite right.

As if in a dream, he saw Scott growl and grab for Aaron. He saw Aaron press the gun to Scott's head again to force him back to his knees. He saw Aaron lay into Scott again with a vengeance, punching and kicking him. Scott didn't resist this time. He'd gotten the message and he let Aaron beat him.

Stiles' fingers worked weakly against the floor as he struggled to clear his head.

Gage eventually ended the beating by waving his brother off. Nudging him out of the way, Gage crouched down in front of Scott.

Jaw set and eyes defiant, Scott pealed himself off the floor and wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His movements were stiff with pain but he was obviously far from cowed. He pushed up to his knees again and spit blood on the floor with hint of contempt, his shattered cheekbone and split lips knitting as they watched. It was a good thing he had that ability. Aaron had probably broken his jaw at least twice.

Gage watched him heal with interest. He reached out and wiped blood from the side of Scott's face with his hand, his thumb tracing over the unbroken, unblemished skin beneath. "That is some trick," he murmured.

Scott didn't flinch or pull away from him. He held perfectly still, staring Gage down.

Taking Scott's hands in his, Gage turned them over, gazing speculatively at the werewolf's bruised, torn wrists. Unlike the rest of Scott's injuries, the damage he'd taken from the charmed cuffs was taking time to heal.

"You wanna tell me how you did this?" Gage asked, nodding down to Scott's wrists. "Those cuffs were special made for werewolves by people who know what they're doing. How did you break out?"

Scott shrugged somewhat insolently, dislike burning clearly in his eyes. "I just did. Maybe whoever you bought them from oversold their effectiveness."

"Well," Aaron said unpleasantly from where he was busy fishing around in one of their gear bags. "We'll just have to find another way to bring this dog to heel, won't we?" He found what he was looking for and grinned wickedly.

Gage looked at him inquiringly.

"I think we can all agree that given that little fiasco, he's way too dangerous to leave running around free," Aaron said. "Especially as we head into unknown territory with lord knows what waiting for us. We don't have any more cuffs and even if they did, that's obviously no good, so I say it's time for stronger measures."

Gage inclined his head in agreement, cocking a curious eyebrow at his brother. "You have an idea?"

"Oh yes," Aaron said, holding up the object he'd dug out of their gear. "I do."

The object looked like some kind of spear gun with a bulky tip at one end, large enough perhaps to be considered a small harpoon. Apparently, the brothers had learned to bring along a variety of weapon types and gear on these kinds of excursions, just in case.

Stiles squinted, suddenly getting a very bad feeling about this. He struggled up onto his elbow, but before either he or Scott had a chance to understand what their captors were planning, Aaron stabbed Scott viciously in the stomach.

o/o/o/o

Pain was a white-hot lance in Scott's senses as Aaron drove the spear's tip in deep before yanking back sharply on the shaft. It hurt intensely. Then, all at once, it got worse.

Scott screamed, doubling forward in agony as the cruel, three-pronged spear tip, meant to catch and snare in the flesh of aquatic animals in order to allow them to be reeled in for capture, sprang open inside him. The pain was _blinding_.

He bucked, writhing in agony as multiple hands clutched at him, grabbing his arms, his shoulders, his hair, anything they could reach to hold him still as Aaron jerked and twisted the spear's detachable shaft until it slid free. Aaron pulled the long, hollow metal rod away and disconnected it, leaving the harpoon barb behind in the wound. The spear tip was attached to a thick steel cable meant to be used in tethering or reeling in a catch. The blood-slick cable trailed out from the wound in Scott's body like some kind of gruesome metal parasite.

Grabbing a second spear from on top of the bag, Aaron moved around behind Scott, a dark grin of enjoyment animating his face. He was getting off on this.

Understanding what was coming this time, Scott groaned, fear flaring through him. It hurt so bad already. He tried to pull away from the hands holding him, but the movement made the barb already inside him shift and cut worse into his already raw insides. He had to stop, the pain was too great. It left him gasping for breath and literally choking on the agony.

Stiles was upright again, and going ballistic. He actually tried to rush Aaron, but was quickly stopped and forced back to his knees by several of the others. "No! Stop! Don't! Please, please don't!" he cried, demands turning to begging pleas as he squirmed and struggled against the men holding him.

Aaron speared Scott again, punching the cruel weapon into his abdomen through his lower back this time. Again, he yanked the hook open inside him and pulled it tight, removing the shaft and leaving the steel cord trailing free.

Scott sank to the ground when they released him, curling into a fetal position and sobbing raggedly in pain. He'd been hurt a lot since becoming a werewolf and had developed a fairly high tolerance, but this agony was indescribable. The clawed hooks had severely damaged his internal organs. These wounds would be fatal for a human. He would survive, but not pleasantly. His body was already rushing to heal itself, but it was healing _around_ the hooks embedded inside him.

Crouching beside him, Aaron fashioned the ends of the metal cables trailing from Scott's body into compact, fist sized loops. "Now here's a leash that should hold," he remarked with a smirk. "Seems that healing of theirs can be used to advantage at times. I figure that if having something embedded in his leg has kept him limping this whole time, this should work too," he explained to his brother. "It won't kill him, but as long as we make sure those hooks stay seated, that should slow him down and give us a way to keep him under control. Last thing we need is a loose cannon werewolf."

"Mm," Gage nodded, approving of the concept but giving his brother a slightly dry look. " _And_ , you enjoyed that."

Aaron grinned at him and lightly kicked the back of Scott's shuddering shoulder. "Well, yeah, that too." He knelt and rummaged around in another bag. "Just one more thing should do it..." He held up a contraption of metal, leather and rubber for Gage to see. "Can't be too careful, we've never dealt with an alpha before."

Gage nodded his approval and Aaron pulled Scott's head up by the hair, sliding the contraption over his face.

It took Scott's agony addled mind a minute to understand what they were doing. Then Aaron pushed a thick rubber plug into his mouth and jerked back on the harness of leather and silver that would hold it in place, and Scott realized with flush of surprise and humiliation that Aaron hadn't been making idle threats earlier. They really were going to muzzle him.

He pressed his eyes shut, fingers curling against the floor, his face feeling hot as Aaron fastened the straps securely, buckling them behind his head. The muzzle was really more like a modified ball gag, with leather straps running under his chin, across the back of his neck and over his ears to hold it firmly in place. Metal rings and bars fastened the straps together and the straps themselves were studded. At first, Scott thought it was his imagination that the metal was warm, but by the time Aaron had finished with the buckles, it had moved past warm into a painful burning sensation and he realized almost numbly that the metal parts of the gag were also made from charmed silver. This was meant for werewolves, just like the cuffs had been. They'd probably been a matched set.

Aaron patted Scott's cheek patronizingly. "There we go. That's what you need. Good doggy."

Scott just closed his eyes, trying not to feel anything. Aaron laughed mockingly and moved away. When Scott opened his eyes again, his gaze landed on Stiles. His friend was on his knees, awkwardly half suspended in the grip of the man restraining him from behind. His gaze was riveted on Scott and there were tears rolling down his face. Stiles looked both angry and anguished.

Scott tried to smile for him, but he couldn't manage it around the gag. Hands hauled Scott to his feet, but his legs felt weak and he wavered, barely able to remain upright unaided. The searing pain in his gut was taking all his strength and attention. If they'd wanted to hobble him, they'd done a good job of it. He was going to be no good to anyone unless he could find a way to push through this.

Stiles spit a couple of creative and ear blistering curses at someone. Struggling to focus, Scott blinked and realized his friend was swearing at Aaron, who had come back over and was casually holding up his gun where Scott could see it.

"Just want you to know, I've divvied up the _special_ bullets, Gage and I aren't the only ones packing. We may not want to kill you unless we have to," he glanced sideways towards Gage as he said this, clearly meaning _Gage_ didn't want to kill them unless they had to. "But you take one of these somewhere nice and non-fatal, and you'll live, but you won't like it. As I understand it, that'll slow your healing way down, and I don't think you can afford that at all right now. So. Don't try anything."

Scott just stared at him. Aaron was either intentionally misinterpreting the facts, or misinformed. A wolfsbane bullet anywhere _would_ eventually be fatal, although it usually took a while. In his current state, it would be a lot shorter while.

Aaron grabbed Scott by the straps of the muzzle, dragging his head forward. "You understand?" he demanded.

Realizing the other man expected an answer, Scott gave a small nod, which was about the only kind of assent he could offer right now.

"Good," Aaron released him roughly.

Scott stumbled, pain jolting through him with every step. His knees gave, but Stiles caught him. Stiles' hands were still bound and that made things awkward, but he didn't let Scott fall.

Their captors were prodding them to start moving again, but Scott could barely stand, let alone walk. He clutched Stiles' shoulders, leaning against him and trying not to sob behind the gag as he struggled to find strength he wasn't sure he had.

Stiles leaned into him supportively. "Hey, I got ya, it's okay," he murmured, his voice hoarse and thick. "It's gonna be okay, Scott. Just hold onto me, I got you."

Stiles tried to tell their captors that this was impossible and cruel and they couldn't expect Scott to be able to continue on like this, after what they'd done to him, but after some well placed threats it became clear that they expected the boys to keep up, or worse things would happen. They did at least un-cuff Stiles so he could more easily support his injured friend.

Scott held onto Stiles tightly and Stiles wrapped a careful arm around his back, supporting him and helping him along. Stiles breathed tensely through his teeth, and Scott knew he was hurting too. His friend was injured and he shouldn't be making him do this, but the fact was he had no choice. He needed him and Stiles was there, just like always. He was there, ready to grab Scott's arm and put everything he had into supporting him, no matter how tired he was, no matter how much it hurt. Just like always.

Scott focused on that. He focused on Stiles, and that one, intensely bright little point of warmth and light that could still reach him amid what was rapidly becoming a sea of darkness. He felt lost and adrift, but that single star in the night sky anchored him. It kept the faint, but necessary spark of hope alive inside him, allowing Scott to keep shuffling forward, allowing him to keep bearing the unbearable pain, one agonizing step at a time.


	12. Through the Valley of the Shadow

**A/N: Just a small warning this time - near the end of this chapter there is a situation that involves some humiliation and a little unwanted touching of private body parts. It's not done in a sexual manner, so even though it's certainly not something Stiles wanted, I don't know that I'd class it as non-con, but others may feel differently so I want to make sure and warn on it just in case. Also, Stiles does get afraid that something worse _might_ happen (although it doesn't), so if any of that might be triggery for you, please steer clear of or skim over the latter part of the chapter. **

* * *

**"Through the Valley of the Shadow"**

* * *

The world was a blur of black stone, the beams of flashlights and the backs of men in battered body armor. Stiles' fingers clutched at Scott's side, slipping sometimes on his blood soaked tank-top as he struggled fiercely to keep them both upright and moving. His muscles ached, his head burned and he felt ready to drop. Thankfully, they did not have very far to travel, but the walk still felt hellishly long. Stiles couldn't focus on their surroundings anymore. He barely noticed how they got through the next doorway. He was too exhausted and in too much pain. All he could afford to focus on was supporting Scott and trying to help him move as smoothly and with as little jarring as possible.

There was a long chamber with more pictures on the other side of the door and Gage finally called a halt. Stiles guided Scott carefully down to the ground in a corner while the mercenaries set up a minimalistic kind of camp for the "night". Unlike the hard stone floor of many of the previous chambers, the ground here was more like packed dirt, as it had been in the very first sets of tunnels.

There hadn't been any more tremors for a while, but the mercenaries seemed increasingly agitated and uneasy anyway as they reached the end of familiar territory and prepared to face the part of this puzzle they had yet to crack.

Reese buried himself away by the far wall with his tablet, a laptop and something that was probably a portable battery charger. It looked to Stiles like he was doing research, so maybe he had brought things with him to study.

The next door that lay ahead of them would be the one that the mercenaries had failed to open on their last time through here. Stiles assumed they would have come back prepared for it, but once they were past that, everything became a lot less certain. Too bad there was very little chance that he and Scott were going to be able to take advantage of that, not with Scott in such a bad way.

Glad to simply no longer be moving for a while, Stiles collapsed gratefully to the ground with Scott and set about checking on his friend's wounds. They were not pretty. A couple of the barbs from the front spear had worked their way forward, their sharp tips puncturing out of Scott's stomach from within. It was awful and Stiles had to crawl away a little distance to throw up before coming back to finish his inspection. There wasn't actually anything in his stomach to throw up beside bile, so it didn't take long. They'd been given water at different intervals along their travels, but not much food. Stiles felt kind of faint as a result, but the constant, low-grade nausea he was dealing with meant he actually didn't feel very hungry. Maybe he was just too busy feeling other things.

Blood seeped continually from around the edges of Scott's wounds, staining his shirt and his jeans and dripping onto the ground beneath him now that he was no longer moving. With his body focused on constantly having to rebuild his vital organs to keep him alive, all his other healing had slowed.

Stiles carefully tried to see if there was any way he could work the barbs out of Scott, but it was hopeless. There was nothing he could do without causing his friend unbearable pain and drawing a lot of attention. That would probably just result in them putting the hideous things back in and hurting Scott even worse in the process.

Stiles' hand bumped something on the ground as he shifted around Scott and he realized that someone had left them a canteen of water and more power bars. He didn't remember that, so it must have been while he was off throwing up, he supposed. He scooted them aside for the moment. His stomach wasn't ready, and he needed to get that muzzle off Scott before he could do anything.

This, at least, was a problem Stiles _could_ do something about. Just looking at the muzzle made his insides icy hot with anger and it was definitely time for it to go. Fairly trembling with suppressed rage, he concentrated on keeping his fingers steady as he worked the buckles and clasps on the awful thing. He had never felt so much like murdering people in his entire life; not even when he was possessed. The Nogitsune had just killed because it was fun. It had, for the most part, been more sadistic and wily than angry. Stiles, right now, was _very_ angry. He felt the darkness of it in his chest like a hot, heavy, aching fist.

He fumbled a bit with the thick straps, encountering difficulty trying to slide the buckles free because of how tightly they were ratcheted and the way Scott's thick, curly hair obscured the clasps. He wanted to get it off as fast as possible, but Scott tensed and screwed his eyes shut as the pressure of tugging on the straps chafed the cruel muzzle against his raw skin. He made no objection, but Stiles saw the expression of pain and quickly slowed his movements, trying to be more gentle, even if it took longer.

It took a minute or two, but Stiles eventually got the gag unfastened. He carefully worked it forward, trying not to do any more damage to Scott's battered mouth as he pulled the silver and leather framework away from his skin and eased the large rubber ball out from between his teeth. He tossed the horrible thing disgustedly into the corner, as far away from them as he could get it without drawing attention.

Turning back to Scott, he inspected the damage, cupping his friend's jaw tenderly between his hands so he could tip his head side to side. The constant, inescapable pressure of the muzzle digging into him had left red marks up the sides of his face and the charmed silver had blistered the sensitive skin around Scott's mouth raw. His lips were cracked and swollen, the corners of his mouth rubbed bloody. The spelled, metal parts of the muzzle had left his injured skin an inflamed red everywhere it had touched.

Stiles had to breathe deeply through his mouth because he was having rather graphic visions of what he wanted to do to Gage and Aaron and everyone else involved in this and his heart actually felt like it might beat out of his chest.

Scott must have been able to hear it, or maybe it was simply the look on Stiles' face that gave away his feelings. He reached up, warm fingers curling around Stiles' wrist. Improbably and illogically, Scott _smiled_ at him. The expression was exhausted and pained, but also soft and completely genuine.

"Thanks. I'm okay," he murmured. "I'll be fine."

Stiles almost choked. Scott was beat to _hell_ and trying to reassure _him._ Nothing at all unusual about that to someone who knew him as well as Stiles did, but the sheer unfairness of the situation made Stiles feel like he couldn't get enough oxygen. Scott deserved a lot of things, all of them good. He did _not_ deserve the crap storm their lives had become. He didn't deserve to have to feel responsible for every life he couldn't save. He didn't deserve to be dragged through hell as a sacrifice waiting to happen and he sure as _hell_ did not deserve to be injured and chained and treated like an _animal._ Too bad life was a blind motherfucking bastard intent on ignoring all of that.

Swallowing back bile, Stiles returned the smile, fingers curling over the hand on his arm. "Yeah, of course you will, but I think the shirt's a goner. Too bad, because you look pretty awesome in it. Works nice with the whole tattoo thing," he said lightly and was rewarded by an amused, relieved brightening of Scott's smile and an easing of the tension between his brows. Scott seemed to find the inanity comforting and his injured body relaxed a fraction.

"You think so?" he asked with that unique mixture of wryness and genuine curiosity that was all his own. He leaned his head wearily back against the wall behind him. It lolled to the side, as if it was too heavy for him to support. Talking sounded like it hurt, but after having his voice taken away by force, it was likely a relief as well. He reached stiffly for the water bottle that had been left beside them, which Stiles had temporarily forgotten about.

Stiles quickly picked the canteen up and twisted the top off, putting it into Scott's hands and helping steady it to his lips so he could drink.

"Uh-huh," Stiles agreed, gently wiping bloody water from Scott's chin when he choked. He slid one hand behind his friend's neck, supporting him so he could drink more easily. "The whole black-with-black while showing off your wolfy biceps, totally hot."

The utter pointlessness and normality of the chatter helped them both feel more grounded. Stiles felt the anger shaking him apart slowly settle down into something a little more manageable. He knew if there was one thing Scott _didn't_ need to be doing right now, it was worrying about him, or trying to be strong for someone else's sake.

There was no intent to deceive. Stiles felt sure Scott knew perfectly well that he was angry and hurting and scared, the same way he knew that behind Scott's smile and his selfless concern he felt all those same emotions. The thing was, nothing _useful_ would come from dwelling on them. This was their way. Smiling in the face of the storm and talking about ridiculous things was how they told each other that they were all right and still hanging on. If you acted like everything would be okay, sometimes you started to believe it. _Sometimes._

Stiles swigged some of the water too and forced himself to eat a couple of the power bars, because he knew he needed the fuel.

Pulling off his plaid over-shirt, Stiles wet one of the shirt tails with water from the canteen. Leaning over, he used the fabric to wash the blood from Scott's face, gently letting the water clean and sooth the skin around his blistered mouth. "I'm sorry," he whispered, focusing on washing away the blood because he couldn't wash away anything else about what had happened. "I'm sorry about Jade. I'm ... I'm so sorry."

Scott caught his wrist, stilling Stiles' movements and looking at him quizzically. _"You're_ sorry? I'm pretty sure that should be my line," he said softly.

Stiles blinked at him in surprise. "What? No. This isn't your fault," he said like that was obvious.

Scott's thumb stroked the inside of Stiles' wrist gently, rubbing against his pulse point. "Well it's not yours either," he murmured. "Maybe we should just agree that the whole situation sucks and it's nobody's fault."

"Except Beavis and Butthead's," Stiles muttered, shooting a baleful glare over his shoulder.

"Yeah," Scott agreed with a small smile, letting go of Stiles' arm. "Except them."

Stiles worked the wet cloth silently against the side of Scott's neck for a minute, cleaning away clots of dried blood from the beating he'd taken earlier. He had a feeling Scott was about as able to let go of his sense of responsibility as Stiles was, which was pretty much not at all, but pretending as if they _could_ helped a little for some reason.

"Scott..." he said again after a moment, fixing his friend with a clear, earnest look. "Look, from here on out, if you get an opportunity to run, I want you to take it, okay? Even if I can't. Even if they threaten me. I'm not trying to be melodramatic here, but we need to face facts. Things don't look good. It doesn't matter what Gage says; we both know they don't intend either of us to get out of here alive and I would rather die for a good cause than for nothing, you know? So if you have the chance, take it, no matter what. _Leave me_ if you have to, okay?" he pressed. "Promise me."

Stiles had his follow-up arguments ready, but to his surprise, Scott didn't protest. Instead he looked at Stiles with steady, serious eyes. "And you?" he asked quietly. "I'll promise, if you will. Will you do the same, Stiles? Will you promise to leave me if I can't make it, or if I choose to stay behind to stop them so you have a chance?"

Stiles swallowed hard. "In a heartbeat."

"Liar," Scott whispered with small smile, and they both knew he was right. "Stiles, let's not make promises we can't keep. I've done far too much of that already." There a wealth of pain in his eyes, and it wasn't physical. "We'll just ... do the best we can. Maybe, if there isn't much farther to go, we'll have some kind of opportunity when they get distracted by their treasure or whatever. Or ... or ..." Scott trailed off, seeming unequal to the task of trying to look for glimmers of hope among the gathering dark.

Stiles studied his hands. You knew things were pretty bleak when even Scott was having trouble being optimistic. "You know, I've been thinking," he said, retreating into the familiar territory of mystery analysis and problem solving to distract them both. "I'm not so sure they're going to find a big old mountain of gold at the end of this bloodstained rainbow like they think. The first sets of pictures did show a lot of people carrying stuff like treasure, but I haven't seen any more like that since we started going deeper in.

"Down here it's all about death and leopard people and trees and freakiness. There's ... I don't know, there's this feeling of ritual about it all. Isn't there? Something's off about this. Something's wrong. I could see booby traps for a tomb or a vault, but that's not what we've encountered. This place isn't built to keep people out, it's built to make them work for getting in. I know the others think this is some kind of bizarre security system, but really, it's more like a puzzle game. It's a quest. That inscription back at the start, in the hub room... I swear, it kind of felt like a EULA, you know? Like, we were agreeing to some kind of terms that everybody in the group had to sign off on before we were allowed to enter.

"I mean, there's an awful lot of fixation on _worthiness_ and _finding a path to glory_ for this to be about going to the local Mayan bank to make a withdrawal, and why would you need to prove yourself worthy to get into a tomb? I mean, if you want a tomb that's a monument for people to visit, you build a pyramid or a national mall or something, you don't hide it in a super secret magic hole. Temple seems more likely, all things considered," he mused. "I could see worthiness and sacrifice playing a role there... but, there's still something missing from that equation. Because, again, why put so much effort into hiding some place you _wanted_ people to visit? I mean, maybe this _is_ about protecting whatever sacred treasures or relics are at the center of this place, but it just ... it doesn't totally work for me. I don't know. I guess part of what bothers me about it, is the way this quest or whatever is set up, with a group who observes and a group who does all the hard stuff. I mean ... why?"

"Yeah... I don't know, good question," Scott agreed softly. He was clearly trying to follow Stiles, but his eyelids were fluttering and he was starting to fade.

Stiles patted Scott's shoulder gently. "Hey, why don't we get you lying down, huh?"

Scott made a pained expression at the thought of moving. The motions involved in lowering himself to a horizontal position required an unwanted amount of flexing for his painful midsection. "I think I'll just lean against the wall," he murmured, tentatively trying to scoot back into a slightly more comfortable position.

Stiles helped him settle so he could rest as much of his weight against the wall as possible. He tried to get him to eat one of the power bars, but Scott shook his head. "I've got hooks through my intestines, Stiles. I don't think eating is a good idea right now."

Stiles made a face. "Ew. Okay, point," he agreed. "Thanks for that. I officially want to puke again now." Scott grinned and Stiles stroked his hair. "Just rest then, okay?" he murmured.

Speaking of internal bodily functions ... the water he'd drunk seemed to have gone right through Stiles. His body was starting to remind him that it had been a really long time since he had peed and he really might want to take care of that in the very, very near future.

They apparently didn't believe in potty breaks in this dimension, because he'd not seen anything like a rest room, or even any convenient bushes or anything. Looking around, he saw that the mercenaries had solved that issue by simply designating one corner of the large room for that purpose. Or at least, so he assumed, since someone was over there relieving themselves right now.

Before he could work up the energy to go get in line, Stiles' attention was drawn to the opposite side of the chamber when he heard Reese calling Gage over. The two men had a brief discussion he couldn't hear and then Gage did something interesting and curious. He pulled the key off his belt and placed it against the wall. It stuck there as if the backside were covered in Velcro and a moment later a small, green, glowing patch spread out around it. The wavering, fluxing pool of light would have looked like a green puddle if it were on the ground. It was only about a foot square, certainly not big enough to be any kind of doorway. It was thin enough that Stiles could see the rock wall through it, like shallow water in a pond, so it wasn't making any kind of physical hole and he wasn't sure what the point was in this procedure.

Then, Gage pulled out a mobile phone. He turned away, walking away to a private corner and holding the phone to his ear. Stiles realized with shock that he was making a _call._ He hadn't gotten a good look at the phone, but it had appeared to be just a normal iPhone, not some super special intra-dimensional communicator or anything.

From the bits and snatches of words he could hear, Stiles got the impression that Gage was talking to their astrophysicist, Sigerson, again. It sounded like Gage was telling him about the situation they'd had with the collapse in the tunnel and pressing the scientist for any new information he might have come up with on their situation.

Once again, Stiles found himself wondering how Gage could possibly be making a normal phone call from another dimension? _"I could still use it to open a comm patch"_ he remembered Gage saying, back in the beginning. He eyed the glowing spot on the wall, putting two and two together.

On sudden impulse, he pulled out and turns on his own cell. He hardly dared to hope... but to his amazement, he found he actually had several bars of signal. As he watched, the date and time on the phone abruptly jumped forward by several days. It looked wrong to him. He wasn't exactly sure how long they'd been in here, but it could not possibly have been _that_ long. His phone was connecting to the outside world and must be picking up time from that reality. They'd told him time worked differently in here, but it only now sunk in that as far as everyone at home was concerned, he and Scott been gone for almost a _week_.

Stiles swallowed, he couldn't think about that right now. He didn't really understand how any of this worked, but supposed that although they need to have a pre-built gateway to open a doorway that could transport physical matter between dimensions, the mercenaries must have found some way to open enough of a connection between realities from anywhere that they could transmit signals. Maybe it worked for more than just phone calls and Reese was even now using that to get a few minutes of mobile internet access as well.

 _How_ the signals made it through was a mystery to Stiles, maybe they had some kind of booster that helped, or something? He didn't know and wasn't about to ask for details. Clearly they had worked something out, and all that mattered was that for a brief span of time, there was a way to communicate with the outside world. Thankfully, the volume on his phone was off, because missed call notifications were flooding in. He had dozens of missed calls and voicemails from the rest of the pack. As much as he would have loved to call home, someone would be sure to hear him and he couldn't risk that. He couldn't play the voicemails for the same reason, too much danger of discovery.

Pretty sure they _would_ take his phone away _now_ if they saw what he was up to, Stiles kept it tucked in his lap, his back to the room like he was still tending Scott. He quickly brought up the email he'd composed to Lydia earlier. He typed feverishly, hurrying to bring it up to date with as much as he knew about the situation and could cram in quickly. Saying a small prayer to the fickle cellular data signal gods, he hit send. He also sent Lydia a quick text message, telling her to check her email and asking if his dad was okay. Hiding the phone back in his pocket, he willed the email and it's attachments to transmit swiftly.

He'd thought Scott was sleeping, but when he looked up he found his friend watching him with wide, dark eyes. Scott raised his eyebrows questioningly, apparently guessing what Stiles was up to and not wanting to risk asking aloud if it had worked. Stiles gave him a hopeful shrug. _Maybe._

"Hey, can you hear Gage's conversation?" he asked in a whisper.

Scott nodded. "He wants Sigerson to find them a way to create another doorway out of here, if they can't make it through the maze, but I think Sigerson is telling him he can't, because Gage isn't happy."

"Hm," Stiles murmured. "Guess that means our fearless amoral leader isn't nearly so sure we're going to be able to find this alleged second doorway as he'd like the others to believe. Comforting."

Stiles checked his phone and saw to his relief that his messages had sent. He was urgently hoping against hope to get a reply, but he saw Gage end his call and head back over towards Reese and knew time was growing short. Gage and Reese conversed for a minute in hushed tones and then Gage removed the key from the wall. The connection bars on Stiles' phone disappeared with it.

Powering the phone back off again, he slid it quickly into his back pocket before anyone could notice.

"Hey, what's this?" a hard voice demanded from behind him.

Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin. He twisted around abruptly to see Gage standing behind him. The man's expression was dark, but he wasn't looking at Stiles, he was holding up the discarded gag that Stiles had tossed into the corner earlier.

"A cruel, barbaric and totally unnecessary instrument of evilness invented by twisted minds that should not exist," Stiles shot back immediately, his tone dripping with scorn. "The muzzle I mean, although the minds too, they shouldn't exist either. Want me to show you how it works?"

Ignoring him, Gage stepped around Stiles and grabbed Scott by the hair. Pulling the teen's head up and forward he readjusted his hold on the gag, clearly intending to put it back in place. "You can take it off him long enough to eat and drink, but otherwise this stays on. I find it off again and I'll cuff your hands behind you," he warned Stiles.

Stiles got between them, pushing Gage physically away from Scott, all the anger flooding back into his chest again like magma flowing up the mouth of a volcano. He clenched his fists at his sides so hard his nails cut into his palms.

"Get the _fuck_ away from him," he seethed. "Are you really that much of a _coward?_ Seriously, dude, does he _look_ like he's _any_ kind of threat to you?" he gestured angrily to Scott's slumped, bloody form.

Scott looked up in alarm at the sudden altercation, one hand pressing to his injured gut as he struggled painfully to his knees. He tried in vain to rise, desperate to get Stiles to back off before he got himself hurt. "Stiles...!" he warned, reaching for him with one stained, trembling hand, but Stiles ignored him.

Standing over the young alpha with his feet spread and murder in his snapping whiskey eyes, Stiles looked more possessively protective than any werewolf and he was _not_ backing down.

Gage's eyes were cold and hard. He held his ground a few inches from Stiles, his body deceptively relaxed with the un-showy calm of a predator who was skilled and confident enough to not need bluster. "Kid," he warned quietly. "I'm going to give you exactly _one_ chance to sit down and shut up."

Of course, Stiles didn't. He did not mistake Gage's calm for a lack of threat, he just didn't _care._ He knew the meaning of fear, and this man could not intimidate him.

" _That_ is completely _unnecessary,_ " Stiles argued, gesturing tensely towards the gag in Gage's hand. "He's got fucking metal harpoons stuck in his fucking insides! He can't _stand_ without help. What do you think he's going to do? Go all Black Knight and try to bite your legs off?!" he reasoned sarcastically.

Stiles was aware that as an alpha werewolf, it maybe wasn't _entirely_ ridiculous of them to be worried about Scott getting his teeth in them, but he also knew that Scott would want to risk turning any of these douche bags into werewolves about as much as they'd like to risk giving flamethrowers to a bunch of pyromaniacs. He had his arguments all lined up, but Gage wasn't interested in arguing.

He struck Stiles across the side of the head so hard and so fast, Stiles didn't have time to see it coming. Gage's body language did not channel his intentions and Stiles had no chance to react. One minute he was glaring at the man, the next he was sprawled on the ground with the world spinning around him, his injured head throbbing like he'd been kicked by a mule.

"STILES!" Scott yelled his name, or at least Stiles was pretty sure he did. His ears were ringing and it was difficult to make things out.

"Son of a _bitch_... can we _stop_ with the ... the thing ... hitting, hitting thing. You're all so... so hitty..." Stiles slurred, disturbingly unable to find the words he was looking for or form them correctly. Dazed by the combination of Gage's punch and the way he had bounced against the hard earth when he landed, he found himself temporarily unable to sort out his limbs enough to coordinate motion. It was like his body was screaming warnings and desired actions at him, but he couldn't process them over the clamor of their own collectively unhelpful input.

Before Stiles could collect himself, Gage rolled him onto his stomach and straddled his hips, the bigger man's body weight pinning him down. Gage yanked the teen's arms behind him, grinding Stiles' hands into the small of his back as he snapped cuffs around his wrists.

As motor control returned to the realm of things he could manage, Stiles belatedly started to struggle, abrading his chin on the rough ground and getting a mouthful of dirt for his pains. He twisted and bucked, but his struggles were sluggish at best. The position he was in afforded him no leverage and no ability to do anything other than wriggle uselessly under Gage's weight.

"Hey, get off! Get off me, man!" Stiles demanded, thrashing more out of defiance than any actual hope of escape.

Gage squeezed his shoulder warningly, keeping him pinned. "You need to calm down. You're not doing yourself any favors right now. Come on kid, let's be practical."

Stiles flinched, flashing back to Gage's words to Jade right before he'd killed her. "You know what? FUCK you and your FUCKING practicality," he seethed. "That is just a weapon for you, a way to get people to do what you want. You're the _stable_ one, you're the _reasonable_ one, right? Not like that younger brother you're always cleaning up after. Well, you know what? Your brother's a sick, sadistic bastard who gets off on violence, but you, you're _worse._ He's a classic psychopath, but you don't have that excuse. You're not _missing_ part of your conscience, you just _killed_ it all on your own. Just like you're going to get everyone else here killed. You and your _practicality._ That's how you get these morons to follow you, because you're _so_ fucking reasonable and practical and it's all about everybody's best interests, right? Except the part where you constantly _lie_ to them about everything that's going on and don't give two _fucks_ about anybody else except maybe your psychotic brother. As far as you care everyone else here is expendable, and if they had half a brain they'd realize that! Just like they'd realize who's going to be next if you need more sacrifices after we're gone. Because it sure as _hell_ isn't going to be you or Aaron." The biting words poured from Stiles in a torrent until Gage shoved his face into the ground, making him eat more dirt.

The furious tenseness in Gage's body as he pressed down against Stiles said that the teen had pegged him far too correctly, and that he was going to pay for his perceptiveness.

Aaron laughed unpleasantly from behind his brother. He whistled and shook his head. "Didn't I tell you that one has a mouth on him?" he ribbed, taking a little too much pleasure in his brother's discomfiture. "You sure we've got the muzzle on the right kid?"

Gage smiled darkly, his face calm but his eyes and voice flinty hard. "You know, I think you have a point." Grabbing a fistful of Stiles' unruly tangle of hair, he jerked the boy's head back, hard. Forcing Stiles to bend his neck at a painful angle that pulled his mouth open, Gage reached around with his other hand and unceremoniously shoved the thick plug of the ball gag between his lips.

Stiles yelped in alarm and protest. He wriggled, trying to twist his head away and spit the foul thing out, but he couldn't. Gage kept his head bent back so hard he could barely breathe. Thick fingers and a tangle of metal and leather straps pressed into his face as the older man forced the girth of the gag in past his teeth with bruising force. He jammed the rubber in too hard, making it hit the back of Stiles' throat and setting him to gagging and retching helplessly.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," Gage warned coolly as he yanked the chin strap down into place, trapping Stiles' mouth shut around the plug. "Throwing up while wearing a gag is a good way to choke to death," he explained conversationally, tugging the thick fastening straps around behind Stiles' head. He buckled them down ruthlessly, pulling the cinches as tight as they would go - which was much, _much_ too tight.

The edges of the gag cut painfully into the corners of Stiles' mouth, the brutal tension making his jaw ache and keeping the large plug inside his mouth pushed so far back it was firmly inside his gag zone and very nearly choking him.

Gage finally let his head fall back to the ground and Stiles screwed his eyes shut, breath rattling wetly, desperately through his nose and around the edges of the gag as his stomach threatened to rebel. The raw, choking sensation brought tears to his eyes and, most unhelpfully, increased the mucus in nasal passages, making it even harder to get air. Panic crept up the edges of his awareness, thumping about in his breast like a trapped beast and threatening to further complicate his breathing issues.

"Easy, kid," Gage said, sounding maddeningly calm again and now indecently amused to top it off. He held Stiles firmly by the hair on the back of his head, keeping his forehead pressed against the ground as Stiles gulped and gasped around the over-large obstruction in his mouth.

"Relax, I'm only giving you want you wanted. You say your friend doesn't need the gag and I think maybe you're right. I think you need it more." He brushed the fingers of his free hand down the side of Stiles' face, checking the fit of the straps. Stiles tried to pull from his touch, but there was nowhere for him to go.

"That mouth of yours could do with some taming, boy. Maybe you'll learn to think a little more before you speak."

Eyes watering, Stiles struggled with the fluttering gag reflex tightening the back of his throat in spasmodic jerks. Gage was a bastard, but Stiles knew he was right that throwing up around the gag would not only be horrible, but also dangerous. Face pressed into the dirt, his own breath came back to him, warm and stale as he fought for oxygen. The earth felt rough and cool against the flaming, splotchy heat diffusing across his cheeks and neck. To make matters just that little bit worse, Gage was straddling his hips, putting a painful amount of pressure on his now overfull bladder. _He was_ _ **so**_ _not going to wet himself. He was_ _ **not,**_ _he was not, he was not!_

"That's it, shh, easy. Easy, boy, just breathe. You can do it," Gage coaxed with a condescending lilt, as if he were gentling a panicking horse. He stroked Stiles' scalp with his thumb as he held him down and had the absolute gall to rub the teen's shuddering back with his other hand in a mock-soothing gesture.

Stiles' gave what sounded like a choked growl behind the gag. Ironically, Gage's actions actually helped, but only because they made Stiles so intensely indignant and incensed that it took the edge off his panic.

After a minute, Gage finally climbed off Stiles' back and stepped away. Stiles coughed, immediately rolling onto his side to try and ease the pressure on his lungs and bladder. He twisted his wrists in the cuffs binding them behind his back and found the bonds unfortunately quite solid.

"The cuffs and the gag are going to stay on until I feel you've learned something," Gage told him, the thread of satisfaction in his tone making Stiles want to get a kanima to spit in his coffee.

Something brushed his face and he immediately jerked back, but then he realized it was only the thigh of Scott's jeans. Scott had dragged himself over, leaving a crimson trail behind him. The scent of blood was strong and sharp. Fresh, wet liquid soaked Scott's shirt around his injuries and made the dark fabric glisten.

"Stiles?" he said worriedly. His eyes were alpha red.

Stiles tried to make some sound to indicate he was all right, but it mostly came out like another little choke. Scott's face was pale, but chiseled with protective fury as he knelt beside him. Reaching out, he gathered his friend to him, trying to help him up. It was hard with him so weak and Stiles' still struggling to breathe, his hands trapped behind him.

Stiles managed to roll onto his side and prop himself on one elbow. Then he started retching again. He bunched up miserably, ending up partially in his friend's lap with his throbbing head resting on his Scott's chest. He was so tired. He hurt so much. He wanted to breathe. He wanted to pee. He wanted to go home. He wanted to wake up. He wanted this to all be one of those overly realistic dreams of his. _He wanted to go home._ The aching thought just brought more watery congestion and Stiles gagged helplessly.

Scott curled over him, hugging the other boy to him protectively and literally snarling up at Gage.

"Take it off," Scott demanded hoarsely, his pain roughened voice only about two steps above a growl. His fingers ghosted awkwardly but gently across the leather straps and silver bars digging painfully into the side of Stiles' face. "I'll wear it. Take it off him."

Stiles quickly shook his head against Scott's chest, squirming and trying to pull himself more upright, without much success. He'd never realized how hard it was to move around without your arms. "Mm!" he protested, clearly meaning _no,_ followed by a rapid string of other unintelligible sounds that were a lot less understandable.

Scott ignored him, working at the clasps on the back of Stiles' head with unsteady fingers.

"No," Gage said simply.

Scott fixed him with a red-eyed glare, forcing himself to shift despite the pain and how little energy he had to expend in this manner. He growled at Gage, intentionally showing his teeth, intentionally making himself the bigger threat. "Take it _off!_ " he demanded, every ounce of menace his failing body possessed flowing into the command. "I'm the one you should be worried about. Let me wear it!"

Stiles finally managed to wriggle his way upright. He flailed unsteadily, automatically trying to use his arms before remembering that was impossible. Instead he body-plowed against Scott as gently as he could, in lieu of being able to grab hold of him. Pressing his head against Scott's collarbone and shaking his head urgently, he tried to convey what the gag wasn't letting him put into words through a motion Scott couldn't easily ignore.

 _Just let it be, Scott, please. It's okay, I'm fine._ Stiles wasn't fine, but he also wasn't anywhere near as _not_ fine as Scott was. The gag hurt and was annoying as hell, but he wasn't dealing with severe internal injuries and the charmed silver didn't burn _him_. _This?_ This was nothing. He could do this.

Scott pressed his cheek lightly against the side of Stiles' face. He got the message, but he wasn't having any of it. "No," he whispered. "No, Stiles, it isn't right."

 _Why the hell not?!_ Stiles wanted to explode, but of course he couldn't actually say it. He was beginning to realize just how inconvenient it was to not be able to speak and how powerless it left him.

"Take it off," Scott said again, quietly. "Or I will rip you apart."

Stiles froze slightly, surprised by the chilling little zing that went through him. He wasn't used to Scott sounding like that. There was something so intense, so _lethal_ in his tone that it didn't sound like a bluff. Maybe, because Scott wasn't bluffing.

Gage regarded Scott, wary but unimpressed. "No. It stays on until I say otherwise. I have a feeling it's too late to teach your friend respect, but he at least needs to learn sense. I have had enough trouble out of the both of you. Everyone's lives are on the line here. I'm not playing games, and you two need to stop pushing. If I get any more trouble out of either of you, there will be consequences. You so much as _snarl_ at one of my people or even _think_ of trying to take that gag off and I will knock out your teeth and cut out his tongue," he told Scott calmly, nodding the last towards Stiles. "Your teeth will probably grow back. His tongue won't. Keep that in mind." His heartbeat never faltered. Gage wasn't bluffing. He would do everything he threatened, without hesitation.

Scott backed down, not about to risk getting Stiles permanently maimed. He pressed his lips together into a tight, angry line, dropping his gaze and trying to blink away the red as he let his shift fall from him. He pressed his eyes shut and tucked his chin into the curve of Stiles' neck.

Scott's body felt unnaturally cold against him, and the werewolf was trembling softly, as if constant shivering sensation had have taken up residence in his bones. Stiles leaned into him a little more, feeling sickly hot and feverish and wishing he could share that warmth and take some of Scott's chill.

"I'm sorry," Scott whispered against Stiles' shoulder.

Stiles could hear the pain of failure in his friend's voice and he quickly, mutely shook his head. Carefully and a little unsteadily, he pulled back and slid into an awkward sitting position. He looked around, but Gage was apparently satisfied that they got the message because he and the others had already gone back about their own business. Catching Scott's eyes, he very emphatically and deliberately shook his head back and forth. He made more unintelligible sounds, lips working against the gag, his gaze sparking with intensity and the frustration of trying to make himself understood.

"Okay," Scott whispered, smiling at him faintly and holding up his hands, as if wanting to stop Stiles before he damaged himself by fighting too hard against the muzzle. "Okay, Stiles, I get it. You don't want me to apologize. You're fine and you've totally got this. That's what you're trying to say, right?" he sighed wryly.

Stiles squinted at him and gave a firm, definitive nod, relieved that Scott understood him. He swallowed gingerly around the gag and shifted uncomfortably, glancing in frustration towards the corner of the room with the makeshift latrine. The pressure in his bladder was nothing short of painful by this point, but he now had a serious problem. He could probably struggle to his feet and make it over to the corner, but then what? With his hands cuffed behind his back, there was no possible way for him to deal with his pants. It was one of those maddeningly inconvenient things that nobody seemed to think about until suddenly there it was, being inconvenient.

He knew Gage had only just cuffed him, but surely a bathroom break wasn't an unreasonable request. He just needed them to let him loose long enough to take care of business and then they could go back to being all pointlessly bondage-y if that rocked their boat.

Towards that end, he tried to attract one of their captor's attention. Being unable to speak made that difficult. The mercenaries nearby seemed distinctly incurious and disinclined to acknowledge the muffled, unintelligible sounds he could make around the gag. They went right on talking and eating and generally ignoring him.

Scott looked at him with a concerned frown, apparently unsure what the problem was."Stiles?"

"Mmm MMmmm!" Stiles tried to push the gag forward with his tongue, tried to free up enough room in his mouth to make himself even marginally able to form sounds, but the contraption was much too sturdy and well made. He was _so_ frustrated he wanted to kick something.

It turned out he had actually garnered some attention, only, unfortunately, it was the last person's attention that he wanted.

Aaron came over and crouched in front of him, fixing Stiles with his dark, shark like gaze. "Got a problem, kid?" he drawled conversationally. "Or you just aching to feel the back of my hand again? Thought Gage warned you about making trouble."

Stiles scowled at him murderously from behind the gag. _"I have to pee,"_ he tried to say, but it just came out "Mm mmm mm mm."

Aaron looked amused, as if he found Stiles' struggles entertaining, which was probably the real reason he'd come over. "What was that, boy? Didn't quite catch it. Didn't your mama ever teach you to speak up?" he mocked.

Stiles knew the jerk was baiting him, but without the use of his tongue he had no weapon with which to defend himself. He was frustrated, angry and he really, _really_ had to pee. Glaring at Aaron, he made slow, deliberate movements as if trying to communicate with someone extremely stupid. He wriggled his shoulders to demonstrate his bound hands, glanced down meaningfully at his lap, then over to the corner that the men were using as the camp latrine.

"MM. MMM. MMM. MMMM!" he said very slowly and deliberately, his pacing managing to convey a sardonic tone even without words. He ended by twisting his body so his bound arms were visible, indicating that he needed his arms released long enough to take care of business. He would have made some quip about hall passes if he'd been able to speak.

" _Oh,_ I see, you gotta piss, right?" Aaron drawled in a deliberately lackadaisical manner. There was something cruel in his eyes and the amused tilt of his mouth.

Stiles nodded warily, having had enough experience with bullies to recognize that look of malicious intent. He dolefully suspected Aaron was just going to go off and leave him to squirm until he pissed himself, but it turned out the older man had a much more direct method of humiliation in mind.

"Well then, come on." Aaron rose abruptly to his feet, dragging Stiles up with him via a hand under the boy's armpit.

Stiles struggled to find and keep his feet, making a sharp, wordless sound of protest and surprise as Aaron half walked, half dragged him the dozen paces or so it took to reach the make-shift latrine. Stumbling and feeling even more off-balance without the use of his arms, Stiles was kept from falling to the soiled earth only by Aaron's strong hands gripping his body. He teetered precariously and spread his legs for better balance.

Aaron pulled Stiles' back to his chest, the boy's bound arms trapped between their bodies. Aaron kept him upright and immobile by wrapping one arm around the teen's stomach. His other hand moved to Stiles' fly. As the big man popped the button on his jeans and yanked down the zipper, Stiles finally understood what was happening and started to vigorously protest.

 _"I can do it myself! I can do it myself, you creepy douche!"_ he objected, although of course the words were rendered into formless sounds of complaint. He shook his head and twisted his body, trying to wriggle away. Aaron was two hundred something pounds of solid muscle; he had all the advantages over the bound, exhausted teenager. Stiles might as well have been fighting a mountain.

Aaron kept him pinned. He bent forward, forcing Stiles to bend with him and putting the boy even further off-balance. He was careful, however, to keep his face out of head-butt range of Stiles' skull. The mercenary was clearly experienced at being a complete asshole.

"Relax, kid, I'm just helping out here. You said you had to go, didn't you?"

Stiles could _hear_ the malicious smirk in the voice speaking by his ear as Aaron tugged open his pants and pushed a rough hand into his underwear. Stiles squirmed and bucked and cried out in wordless fury around the gag, but Aaron brought a quick end to that when he pulled Stiles' dick free and squeezed him painfully.

"I'm doing you a favor, here, boy. You keep moving around like that and my hand is liable to _slip_." Blunt fingernails dug into Stiles' flesh, drawing a yelp of pain. "That will hurt, a _lot,_ " he threatened. "You don't want that, right?"

Wincing, body as tense as a piano wire, Stiles reluctantly fell still. His breath rasped harshly around the gag and he felt a hot, embarrassed flush starting to burn its way up his neck and across his cheeks as Aaron cupped him loosely in his big, warm hand. It wasn't a sexual touch, Aaron was holding him as he would have held himself when using the privy, but that didn't make the undesirable contact any the less unwanted or humiliating.

"Everything okay here?" Gage's voice came from somewhere behind them. Stiles couldn't see him from his current position. He couldn't see much of anything other than the dark wall directly in front of him, but the voice sounded close. The fuss Stiles been making had clearly attracted attention. Stiles swallowed raggedly behind his gag, ice forming in his stomach as he suddenly remembered Gage's earlier threat to cut his tongue out if he kept causing trouble. That idea terrified him more than he wanted to admit.

"Fine," Aaron replied unconcernedly, allowing Stiles to straighten up a little now that he was no longer struggling, but still holding him firmly trapped against his body. "Kid needs to piss," he said, as if this were the most natural situation in the world.

There was a very slight pause, then just the unconcerned sound of the elder brother's voice saying "Okay," as he went back to whatever he'd been doing. Stiles twisted his head to the side, then wished he hadn't, because he caught sight of two of the other men lounging against the nearby wall. They were observing he and Aaron with bored, malicious interest, as if watching him be humiliated was entertainment. One of the men noticed Stiles looking and he smiled derisively.

Stiles' gaze quickly returned to the dark, filthy patch of earth in front of him. His head dipped a little as the heat of his flaming face battled with the sick, icy cold sensation in his stomach. He was bound, gagged, helpless and surrounded by douches with no other significant sources of amusement. _Fantastic._ It reminded him dismally of being cornered in the locker room at the start of freshmen year by a bunch of stupid senior jocks with nothing better to do. Only these men had even less fear of being held accountable for their actions, and _they_ weren't likely to freak out and split if Scott conveniently started having a severe asthma attack.

"Come on, kid, you shy? We haven't got all night," Aaron mocked unhelpfully, waggling Stiles' dick in his hand.

Stiles shifted from foot to foot. His gut was tied into so many tense knots that relaxing enough to pee _now_ seemed impossible. Aaron wasn't helping. _"Stop. Just let me go,"_ he mumbled. It didn't matter that the words were unintelligible. He was sure Aaron knew what he wanted and equally sure he wasn't going to get it.

"Maybe I should play a little music, run some water?" Aaron continued to taunt, his breath hot on the back of Stiles' neck. There was some crude laughter from the peanut gallery and Stiles would have _loved_ to ask when exactly they had started allowing seventh graders to carry around weapons, because clearly these idiots had the maturity level of a bunch of prepubescent boys. Too bad there was no way for him to make them understand the insult. _God,_ he wanted to talk. This _sucked._

Stiles' shirt had gotten hiked up some during his struggles and Aaron deliberately stroked his thumb back and forth across the exposed skin of his abdomen, as if intending to sooth when in fact his touch did exactly the opposite.

Somehow, Stiles managed to finally just pee and get it over with. He stared fixedly at the wall as Aaron tucked him away again with exaggerated care, refusing to look anywhere else until Aaron finally dragged him back to their corner and left him there.

Stiles found Scott on his knees, waiting for him. Scott was breathing hard through his nose, almost hyperventilating. His eyes were red, his claws dug into his own fists to hide them and his mouth was clamped in a grim line. He was obviously struggling hard not to disobey Gage's earlier injunction and cause a scene that would bring about the gruesome retribution he'd promised them.

Scott's angry, blazing eyes filled with pain when he looked up at Stiles and his expression crumpled with a mixture of heartache and guilt. He whined softly in the back of his throat, like it was all he could do to hold it together. Like sitting here and watching that happen to Stiles while being powerless to even _try_ to intervene without risking bringing even more harm to him had almost killed him.

Stiles dropped to his knees and rubbed his head against Scott's shoulder, trying to tell him without words that he was okay, that there was nothing Scott could have done that wouldn't have made things worse and that Stiles was proud of him for keeping control like this. It was funny how taking away his voice and his hands made him resort to a sort of animal behavior, a communication based on touching and rubbing and meaningful grunts.

Scott gripped the front of his shirt tightly and held onto him, burying his face against Stiles' neck again and breathing deeply, as if that position was particularly soothing to him. "I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, and Stiles could hear the lisp of the words coming out around the mouthful of fangs Scott was trying hard to hide. "I'm sorry."

Stiles whined in his throat and started to pull back, but Scott's grip tightened. He shook his head. "I know, I know you don't want to hear that, but I need to say it, okay? I know this isn't my fault, but I'm still sorry it happened. I know going over there and disemboweling them would only have made everything worse, even if I'd been able to, but that doesn't mean a part of me doesn't feel like I should have anyway. Just ... let me have that, okay? They're such ... such absolute ... _dick heads,_ " he seethed.

Stiles actually had to smile despite everything, a genuine chuckle escaping him because _oh my God,_ only Scott would cast about for a terrible imprecation and come up with _dick heads._

He sighed and let his weight rest a little against Scott, hopefully not enough to hurt him, but just enough to feel ... okay, yes, it was stupid, but to feel _safe._ Scott held onto him, rubbing his chin against Stiles' shoulder.

This whole situation was ridiculous. He and Scott were being incredibly touchy-feely, rubbing and nuzzling like they were actually canine, and Stiles wasn't even a bloody werewolf. But it was the only way he could communicate right now and maybe ... okay, maybe he needed the contact a little too. Just a little. Because Aaron had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. It had been humiliating, yes, but he had also been _scared_. Scared that things had been going to turn out a _lot_ worse than they had. Scared of something he hadn't even thought to _be_ afraid of until he'd been standing there, trapped, partially naked and on display for their amusement.

"It's okay," Scott murmured to him. "It's okay."

Stiles realized belatedly that Scott must be able to feel him shaking. He wanted to mutter that he was just cold, but of course he couldn't. Just as well, Scott would know he was lying anyway. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing he couldn't talk just now. If he could talk he would feel compelled to be making light of the humiliation he'd just suffered and cracking jokes about it until it felt okay. He'd feel the need to tell Scott how all right he was and how it didn't matter ... but he wasn't all right, and it did matter, and while he certainly didn't want to dwell on those facts, maybe it wasn't a terrible thing that he didn't have to deny them either.

With a lot of pained, awkward shifting, the two boys finally managed to lie down next to one another on their sides. Careful of his own injuries and Stiles' trapped hands, Scott pressed up against Stiles' back, burying his face in the back of his friend's neck. The warmth was welcome, and the contact continued to give Stiles a ridiculous feeling of safety that was completely illogical, but deeply comforting. The closeness seemed comforting to Scott too and his pained breathing slowly evened out.

Despite how tired he was, Stiles feared he might not be able to rest, or at least not well. He couldn't, sometimes. It wasn't uncommon for his chronic, post-possession insomnia to totally ignore how dead exhausted he was and maliciously prevent him from more than fitful dozing, especially if he was stressed. _This_ definitely qualified as stressed. He was so tired on every level that his body cried for sleep, but he wasn't so sure he'd get it.

Thankfully, after only a minute or two of laying there and listening to Scott breathe, Stiles felt his body starting to grow deliciously heavy and blessedly numb. Reality faded into a welcome twilight and he started to drift, his heartbeat unconsciously syncing with Scott's.

In the half conscious state between sleeping and waking, he felt like he was floating. He felt like he was drifting, somewhere in the vastness of a reality that only barely existed, lost and alone in the empty, frightening void. The sensation was desolate and threatened to disturb the tentative peace settling over him.

Shuddering slightly, Stiles unconsciously burrowed back into Scott, and the slowly sensation eased. He was still drifting, but not alone, and not _entirely_ lost, because even as his overburdened heart ached for home, he had an important piece of it right there with him, pressed against his back and breathing slowly against his shoulder. That was why he could relax enough to let his exhaustion claim him. That was why, even in the depths of hell, Stiles was finally


	13. Unwilling Pilgrims

**"Unwilling Pilgrims"**

* * *

"Let me drive you home," Derek offered as he turned into the parking garage beneath his building. "We can come back for your car later." He shot a concerned glance at his passenger, who looked weary in ways beyond the physical.

"Thanks, but that's okay. I'll be fine," Melissa McCall patted his arm as if sensing his worry. She gave him a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Derek accepted that, even though he knew that _fine_ was the last thing she was. Both of them were avoiding the elephant in the car, but it's presence hung over them like a dispiriting pall, pressing down on their shoulders and weighing down their hearts.

They'd spent most of the night in the Preserve assisting with the continuing search and rescue efforts. Although, _assisting_ was mostly a euphemism. Professional teams trained in excavation S&R had been on the scene for a while now and there was not much for them to do other than observe and wait. On personal leave from her job, Melissa served coffee and brought boxes of pastries from the grocery store for the workers. She didn't have to, they knew who she was and why she was really there. They would have let her stay anyway, but it obviously made her feel better to be doing _something._ Everyone working the scene had become very appreciative and protective of her, but as the days passed, Derek could see the sadness growing in their eyes. He knew that after this past night, they all had to be hoping she wouldn't return. Nothing they found now would be something they wanted her to see.

Derek knew Melissa would return, though. She'd shower, catch a few hours sleep, and then she'd be back. She wouldn't quit until they found her son; until she could bring her boys home, one way or another.

The whole pack had been out there in the beginning, even the injured ones as soon as they were on their feet again. There had been a lot more to do then. Frustrated by the driving rain and the difficulty getting equipment that far into the woods, excavation had been a mostly volunteer affair and it had been easier for the supernaturally strong members of their group to work without drawing attention. Strength could not make up for a lack of real excavation equipment and the going was slow, but at least they had been able to do something. The first day and night had passed in a blur of rain and mud and rocks and tree roots and a supercharged sense of hope and desperation.

Then Search and Rescue had finally forged a path in with their equipment and taken over the scene. The second day had turned into an anxious, uneasy vigil as they tried to stay out of the way and prayed for the storm to let up. Through that long, grueling night, the exhausted pack took their vigil in shifts, occasionally napping in the back of a truck and going home to shower.

By the time the third day rolled around, Melissa finally sent the kids home, gently but firmly. There was nothing they could do there but wait, and she promised to call them as soon as anything happened. There was nothing Derek or Melissa could do there either, but Melissa wouldn't leave and Derek stayed with her.

It had now been five days since the cave in. Extraction crews had been working around the clock, but progress was slow and hope had grown thin. The storm wasn't the only problem hampering their efforts. A weird string of equipment failures had plagued them from the start and the collapsed earth proved to be permeated with layer after layer of dense, tangled tree roots that snarled digging equipment, broke chainsaws and took forever to get through. To make matters worse, the hill in which the cave had been set was unstable. Several times landslides from above had complicated the situation and made them clear the same areas over and over in order to make headway.

The rain had finally started to let up yesterday and near nightfall, the searchers had uncovered the first body. They'd continued removing corpses all through the long night that followed and Melissa and Derek had waited and watched in a grim mixture of expectation, hope and fear.

In the end, none of the remains had been immediately recognizable as either of the missing teens, although some of the bodies were past the point of easy identification. That was good, and yet the sense of anti-climax was dispiriting to say the least.

The workers were now trying to stabilize the hill enough to allow them to dig further back into the area where the bodies had been recovered. Efforts would continue until all the missing were accounted for, but given the passage of time and the discovery of the bodies, most of the rescue workers' hopes of finding survivors had drained away and it was clear they were officially moving into body recovery mode now.

Derek and Melissa were trying to stay optimistic, but they both knew that the situation was becoming bleak. Even Scott's werewolf body had its limits and as much as he wanted to deny it, there was almost no way Stiles could still be alive.

"Are you going to call Mr. Stilinski?" Derek asked as he navigated into a parking spot. He frowned as his headlights raked across several other familiar cars parked nearby.

Melissa nodded wearily, un-clicking her seatbelt. "They've been keeping him sedated ever since he nearly killed himself trying to leave, but he should be stable enough that they'll be dialing back the meds by now. I'll stop by the hospital on the way home. I don't want him to hear on the news that they recovered bodies and not know."

"Are you going to call Scott's father?" Derek asked more quietly.

Melissa froze halfway out of the car. "No." She shut the door.

Derek climbed out as well, casting another curious frown towards the vehicles that didn't belong here.

Melissa massaged the bridge of her nose. "They're still keeping the boys' names out of the press. I'll call him when we actually know something," she said, as if feeling a need to explain. "I just... I can't, right now," she admitted. "Is something wrong?" she asked, unsubtly changing the subject as she caught sight of Derek's frown.

"Lydia, Kira and Deaton are here," he said, nodding towards the cars parked on either side of Mrs. McCall's vehicle. He inhaled. "Actually, I think everyone is," he corrected, catching the familiar, recent scent of pack lingering in the air.

Melissa raised her eyebrows. "Derek, it's barely 5am in the morning."

"Something must be up," he agreed. It wasn't uncommon for some of them to drop by, but not generally this early and unusual presence of Dr. Deaton made him especially curious.

"Where are they?" Melissa was looking around like she expected them to be down here somewhere, but Derek knew better.

He sighed ruefully and considered getting his locks changed for the umpteenth time. "Upstairs, I'm sure. You want to come?"

As expected, Derek found his loft overrun by teenagers making themselves at home. There was a growing propensity lately to use his place as a gathering spot when they needed room to spread out and work on something that he probably should have minded more than he did. He liked having their scents about, he had to admit, but he really needed to establish some ground rules about replacing stuff in the fridge. At least no one had thrown an unsanctioned rave in a while. He still couldn't believe that one.

The current situation looked much more like a study session than a party, however. Books and print-outs littered the coffee table, counter and floor and a laptop perched on the corner of the couch not currently occupied by excited but slightly bleary-eyed teens. Deaton was in the kitchen area making coffee.

Lydia sprang up as soon as they arrived and hurried over. "Oh good! You're both here," she said, looking between them. "Deaton just arrived too, so that makes all of us. Did you get my message?" she added to Derek.

Derek shook his head, he'd had his phone on vibrate and mustn't have felt it ring.

"That's fine," Lydia waved her hand dismissively, her whole being animated with far too much energy for this hour of the morning. Derek felt tired just watching her, but Lydia snatched her own cell off the counter, holding it out to them, and her next words drove all traces of weariness from him. "I heard from Stiles! He and Scott are alive."

Lydia showed them the text message and the slightly jumbled, fantastical email she had received from Stiles in the wee hours of the morning.

"The text notification woke me, I thought it might be you, with news," she explained once they'd read it through. "I texted him back, but I haven't heard anything else yet. I called Deaton right away to ask about this dimensional portal business. And he said..." she gestured to Deaton as if handing him the floor.

"That there are stories in ancient lore regarding these type of _'magic caves'_. They were the trademark constructs of a certain, rare sub-section of magic practitioners in antiquity. They were a small and incredibly secretive sect and their art was eventually lost with them." Deaton supplied obligingly, although Derek felt sure what he'd actually said initially was probably something more like _"do you have any idea what time it is?"_

Deaton's phone rang. He glanced at the number and excused himself to take the call.

"Deaton said he'd dig into the lore some more and see what he could turn up," Lydia picked the story back up. "While he did that, I started digging into the Mayan connection and what we could make of the information and pictures Stiles sent. I called everyone else and let them know to meet here as soon as they got the message. Hope you don't mind, I didn't want to wake my parents," she added parenthetically, although it wasn't really a question and she didn't wait for a response.

She led them over to where she'd printed out and chronologically arranged all the photos Stiles had sent her on Derek's table.

"You see these?" she tapped a blown up section of a photo that contained a blurry and pixilated image of what looked to Derek kind of like a spotted cat with human legs. "Stiles calls them leopard-people, but I think they actually represent were-jaguars," she explained. "Jaguars were sacred to the Maya and show up in a lot of their stories and mythology, so that makes the most sense. They had a number of Jaguar deities, including a whole sub-class labeled 'jaguar transformers'. I haven't been able to find any other examples of Mayan art that depict them _quite_ like _this_ ," she admitted. "But the half animal, half human shape certainly seems to suggest a were-creature."

"Like Kate," Derek supplied, sensing that Lydia was reluctant to bring up that connection to him. The pictures looked nothing like Kate had looked, but then she'd looked about as much like a real Jaguar as most of his kind looked like actual wolves. Unless you could fully transform like his mother, and now himself, the similarities were purely impressionistic. He supposed this symbolic half and half representation was as good as any for getting the point across.

"Yes," Lydia agreed. "And actually, there's something kind of interesting there. I know that the shape a turned were-being takes can depend on influences like what they're like on the inside, but the connection between Kate and Mexico seems awfully coincidental in light of all this. I don't know if it means anything, but it's interesting, given the geography. The Mayans, Aztecs and Inca all revered Jaguars and have Jaguar deities in their mythology. I would be surprised if there _wasn't_ some reason for that."

Deaton finished his phone call and returned then. "Sorry, that was someone I was waiting to hear from. No good news I'm afraid, but I have other irons still in the fire. I've been reaching out to different people who might be able to help us dig up more information about these gateways and anyone who might still have a functioning key."

"You think there's more out there?" Melissa asked, surprised.

"Possibly," Deaton hedged. "There are almost certainly more portals, it's the keys that have all been lost or destroyed. Or, so I thought, until now. If any others _have_ survived they're likely to be heirlooms within ancient families. They're incredibly rare, incredibly valuable and are doubtlessly treated as carefully guarded secrets."

"Stiles says the gateway in the Preserve was destroyed when they blew up the cave," Derek pointed out. "Even if we can find another key, it won't work there. Do we know where this second door they're trying to reach is? Can we go in from that side?"

"Given the clear Mayan connection, I suspect the location is going to be somewhere near a location of importance in the ancient Mayan Empire," Deaton replied.

Lydia helpfully brought up an image on her laptop that showed the borders of the Mayan Empire transposed over a modern map. "As you can see, that area now encompasses modern day Guatemala and Belize, and parts of Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador."

"Any chance it could be in that church where Kate took Derek and Scott?" Liam asked. "There was obviously some magical stuff going on there."

"Unfortunately, that's much too far north in Mexico to have been part of the Mayan Empire, and that structure wasn't nearly old enough," Lydia replied. "It wouldn't surprise me if it was related somehow, but if so it would have been made much, much later than when the portal was built."

"Beacon Hills wasn't part of the Mayan Empire either," Malia pointed out.

"True, but this gateway's location has something to do with the Nemeton. Maybe they used it to power the spell?" Lydia speculated thoughtfully.

"I don't think so," Deaton disagreed. "The practitioner who cast this dimension was almost certainly down in the south, with the Maya, when he or she did so. They could have picked anywhere for their secondary tethering point. It seems fairly clear that the Nemeton was the reason for choosing this spot in particular, but _why_ is the interesting question. I should think that attaching an anchor so near another source of power would have been more difficult than choosing some other random point, so they must have had some very compelling reasons to expend that effort."

Derek was studying the map, much more interested in figuring out where the remaining gateway might be than knowing why there _used_ to be one here. "Last I heard from Cora, her pack was in Belize for a couple of months," he told them. "Maybe they can help us search for this second doorway, if you can explain to them what they're looking for and how to find it?" He looked to Deaton.

"That would be the difficult part," Deaton said regretfully. "They weren't exactly meant to be found by people who didn't already know where they are."

"But those people that took Scott and Stiles, they did it," Kira pointed out. "Stiles said they found these doorways by the radiation they give off, can't we do the same?"

"What kind of radiation? How much? How do you tell it apart from any of the rest of the radiation in the world?" Deaton pointed out. "We don't know."

Derek borrowed Lydia's phone again to re-read that part of the email. Stiles did mention the gateways giving off radiation, but offered no further details. Either he didn't know, or hadn't had time to include it. His message had become rushed to the brink of near incoherency by that point, as if he was trying to impart too much information in too little time, under duress. Given the brief, but incredibly disturbing mention of at least two human sacrifices to date, _duress_ was probably putting it mildly.

"Maybe not, but we know someone who does," Melissa pointed out. She'd been reading over Derek's shoulder and she pointed to an earlier section of Stiles' email. "These people, Sigerson and Landrow. They're on our side of reality still, right? They'll know." She looked ready to go find them herself.

"That would be Gavin Sigerson and Craig Landrow," Lydia supplied. "I passed Stiles' email on to Parrish. He already had info on Landrow as one of Gage Ackerman's possible known associates. Sigerson wasn't on any criminal databases, but based on the assumption that he's some kind of expert on astrophysics, we were able to find a likely candidate in one Dr. Gavin Sigerson, formerly of the University of Amsterdam, from which he was dismissed in disgrace a couple of years back after some kind of academic scandal. Parrish is looking for any leads on either of their current whereabouts."

For most of the conversation, Mason had been quietly studying the photo print outs. He looked up now. "Something doesn't make sense to me," he said slowly, pointing at the image of a doorway with glowing symbols over it. Stiles had provided a paraphrase of the translation in his email and it was written on the picture in sharpie. "If we're saying the doorway here on our end was just a secondary anchor point, why does this look so much like a _starting_ point?"

"I think, because it _was,_ " Deaton said. "Given the artwork we can see here, I suspect this pathway was meant to function as a symbolic pilgrimage of some sort. If that's the case, then the extreme distance of the journey from the lands of the Maya to this distant, foreign place was likely the first part of that pilgrimage. If you made it that far, then you went on to face the cave. If you survived the cave and whatever waited in there, then you'd eventually come back out the other side and be home without having to make another long return journey. These challenges Stiles talks about, they read like tests, meant to prove the supplicants' worth."

"Including sacrificing people?" Kira asked dubiously.

"While I agree that that should disqualify anyone from being worthy of anything, human sacrifice was unfortunately sacred to a lot of ancient people," Lydia said with a sour expression. "Magical types also seem to favor it," she added, her tone dark with memory.

"Unfortunately true," Deaton nodded. "Sacrifice is a potent force in what we consider dark forms of magic. But I think these," he tapped the pictures, "are more about proving yourself willing to pay the proper costs and offer the necessary rites of respect and sacrifice. As much as it makes it worse, I think you were actually supposed to be offering up people you cared about, not random strangers."

"That's just sick," Melissa murmured.

Deaton inclined his head with a little more equanimity than Derek might have liked, but he knew it was just the druid's way. He probably knew a _lot_ of disturbing things.

"The thing about pilgrimages, though," Deaton continued. "Is that the journey generally is leading you _to_ somewhere. The question that concerns me most is _where_ is this one is leading, and _why._ "

"Aren't pilgrimages usually made to shrines or holy places?" Liam asked.

"Yes, and that's undoubtedly what this place is, but these inter-dimensional spaces were not easy, or cheap to procure. You had to have a _very_ good reason for creating one. Some of them were indeed used to protect very precious assets, but almost never were they simple treasure hordes. Stiles references the Aladdin story here, but recall that in the story, the treasure in that cave was secondary trappings meant to distract. The true purpose of the place was to protect, or perhaps even contain, a trapped djinn. The 'genie in the lamp'," he added for clarity when he got a couple of blank looks. "I'm sure you're all thinking of friendly genies in cartoons, but you'd be nearer the mark if you remember that the Nogtisune was also once trapped in a jar," he warned. "There was usually a reason people went to the effort to bottle a spirit."

"You are ruining my childhood," Mason remarked wryly.

"The point," Deaton said with a very slight smile. "Is that even if they were re-purposed later, or eventually lost whatever they were originally protecting, as far as I'm aware, almost all these type of caves were built not just to keep whatever was inside safe from the outside world, but also to keep the outside world safe from whatever was inside."

"Like the Labyrinth in Knossos," Lydia put in. "Some of what Stiles sent made me think of Greek stories about Theseus and the Labyrinth, so I looked into it a little further," she explained. "The story goes that the labyrinth was designed by Daedalus and his son Icarus. If we assume they were magicians it actually make some of the other stories about them make more sense, but anyway, the labyrinth was commissioned by King Minos of Crete. He had it built to be a prison for the Minotaur and every so often they'd send seven young men and seven young women in there as sacrifices.

"All indications point to this alleged labyrinth being in Knossos, but no conclusive proof of such a structure in that location has ever been found... at least, not in _this_ reality. What if that's because the actual labyrinth itself was inside one of these inter-dimensional spaces? I mean, the Minotaur, hello? Part bull, part man? Anyone else thinking that could possibly be a euphemism for a super-nasty were-creature of some kind? Granted, I never understood why something resembling a bull would be carnivorous, but whatever. There's also a lot of bull-shaped gods in many cultures' old stories, so who knows? A lot of details and truth have probably been lost in the long retelling, and there's no way to know for sure about any of this, but it seems to fit and I think it's probably more than coincidence."

"Okay, wait," Malia held up her hands, frowning. "So, are you saying those idiot treasure hunters could accidently be breaking their way into a _PRISON_?"

"In a sense, yes, that's quite likely," Deaton replied. "Although the pilgrimage aspect suggests that whatever was being kept at the heart of _this_ labyrinth was regarded with a rather complicated balance of fear and respect. You had to go to a lot of trouble to visit this place. If it _was_ built as a prison for a sentient being, whatever that being was must have been destructive enough that it needed to be locked away, but revered and feared enough for people to risk making such a long and difficult journey to see it, behold it, experience it... whatever it was that they went there to do."

"But that was a really long time ago. It would be dead by now, whatever it was, wouldn't it?" Malia asked.

"Maybe, but then again maybe not," Deaton replied unhelpfully. "Anything powerful enough to warrant this kind of enclosure has the potential to be very long lived, and time may not work the same in there as it does out here, either. At this point we can only speculate, but the bottom line is that the men who took Scott and Stiles have _no idea_ what they might be walking into."

* * *

Stiles awoke reluctantly to someone kicking his shoulder. He groaned, curling in on himself and automatically trying to bat the prodding limb away. _"Go away,"_ he tried to mumble. Only, of course, he couldn't move his arms or speak, so neither effort succeeded. A jolt of disorientated panic shot through him, bringing him instantly awake and for a moment he struggled, frightened at waking up in such a helpless state. He blinked, trying to make sense of his surroundings, his heart flailing hard in his rib cage.

A warm forehead pressed against the back of his neck and the panic dissipated, a fragile sense of calm settling over him long enough for his mind to come fully online to the point that he remembered where he was and what was happening.

He saw the mercenaries packing up in clear preparation of moving out again and groaned behind his gag. _Time to do more walking. Yay._

Getting up was a slow, frustrating and somewhat painful affair without the use of his arms. As bad as it was for him, it was a hundred times worse for Scott because of his injuries. Stiles helped as much as his trussed up state allowed and Scott eventually managed.

Scott leaned against the wall, pressing his shoulder and cheek against it and hanging his head as he tried to compose himself in the wake of the effort. He pressed his eyes shut, breathing in short, staccato sobs until the pain settled enough to be manageable.

Stiles stood protectively in front of Scott while he gathered himself. He shifted from foot to foot, becoming uncomfortably aware that he had to pee again. He usually did when he woke up, but he was just going to have to hold it, because there was _no way in hell_ he was risking a repeat of last night. Just the thought made his stomach twist with a sour knot of fear and shame.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Scott's soft voice made Stiles start and turn towards him. He wasn't sure how Scott knew anything _was_ wrong. He shrugged, glancing down briefly and then away. His gaze caught on Aaron for a moment and he quickly looked away, his face warming. _"Mm-mm,_ " he murmured. _Nothing._

"You gotta pee again?" Scott guessed quietly.

Stiles squinted at him for figuring it out, but just shrugged again. It wasn't like he _could_ answer.

"Me too. Come on, you help me, I'll help you," Scott said simply.

Feeling a swell of relief, Stiles nodded his agreement. Not wanting to move Scott more than necessary he decided this corner was as good as any other since they were about to leave anyway. Scott didn't really need that much help from him, he just stood by and let his friend use his shoulder for a brace as he relieved himself.

He needed more help, but Scott was blessedly matter-of-fact about it, gently helping him with his fly and what needed to be done. They'd known one another long enough that they'd gone through the little-boy stage of aiming contests together, so it wasn't all that awkward. They weren't little boys any more, and Stiles' body definitely reacted differently to being touched now, but it was Scott, so it was okay.

"You remember when we met?" Scott murmured with a little grin. "In the sandbox on the old playground at pre-K, before they built the new one? And you came right over and peed on my sandcastle?"

Stiles' lips quirked around the gag. He'd forgotten all about that, but it came back to him vaguely. He honestly had no idea why he'd done that anymore, it was so long ago. He probably just hadn't been able to wait, he had been _four_ after all. He did remember that Scott hadn't yelled at him or started crying and getting him in trouble. That was unique enough in his experience with other children for it to be memorable. Instead, Scott had _... Scott had joined him? Why had he ...?_ It came back to him suddenly then. _A lake. We were trying to make a lake around the castle, like in the book at story time._ He still had no notion why that had seemed like a good idea, but that had been his objective, and when he explained, Scott had thought it a worthy endeavor, even if Mrs. Perkins had decidedly thought otherwise.

They'd been practically inseparable after that, and it had never really changed. Other people came and went, but Scott was always there. A flood of sparking, connected recollections flittered through his mind and the memories warmed him a little, reminding him of parts of his past that were easy to forget lately. The happy parts. There were a surprising lot of them.

"All right, let's move it, people," Gage's voice raised in general announcement told them they needed to hurry. Scott zipped Stiles back up and then leaned heavily on his shoulder as they joined the others.

"You're sure we've got everything we need in there now, and we're not going to have the same problem we had last time?" Stiles heard Gage ask Reese as they headed out.

"Yes," Reese said, holding up a large metal flask he was carrying. "Yes, and just in case, I've brought plenty of the raw ingredients with us. I have everything I need to keep trying until we get the right mix, but I'm almost positive this should do it."

"Let's hope. Time is getting to be a premium," Gage replied before they drew too far ahead for Stiles to hear them anymore. He assumed they were speaking about the next doorway and whatever challenge had forced them to retreat and gather more resources last time.

He wondered what kind of a compound it was that they'd needed to make, but he would never know the answer to that question. Stiles lacked the ability to support Scott in any way other than giving him a shoulder to lean on, and the mercenaries seemed completely disinclined to assist them, so they fell steadily further and further behind the group. The cruel irony of it was that now would have been a pretty good time to slip away, if there'd been anywhere to go and if they could have moved at anything other than a hobble. There was nowhere to go but the same direction their captors were headed, however, and neither of the two teens were in any shape to try anything.

By the time they caught up with the main group outside the next doorway, Reese had already done his thing and the door was sliding open.

For a moment, Stiles thought the lurch under his feet was a product of his own unsteadiness. Then, everything went to hell.

One moment, Reese was standing there to the right of the open door, giving Gage a triumphant look. The next, the ground beneath him disappeared, and he was gone. He didn't even scream.

Then the ground was falling away all around them, the passage quaking as if in agony as it dissolved into a honeycomb of cracks. Stiles saw another man disappear and then everyone's flight instinct kicked in and they were running, seeking the illusion of safety that didn't exist, fleeing a danger they could never really outrun.

Stiles stumbled, he and Scott struggling to avoid the dangerous broken places. He felt extremely clumsy and top heavy without his hands. The ground lurched, he missed a step and fell. Unable to rise and terrified of rolling sideways into one of the cracks in the attempt, Stiles floundered in terror for a moment until Scott grabbed him by the back of the shirt and hauled him up. The action clearly cost Scott, but, ironically, their danger actually seemed to be bringing him a new strength, even if was only the strength of desperation. Scott always did rise to a challenge.

They made it through the doorway and down the next passage. The quake was not quite as violent as the previous one had been, but it lasted much longer. It went on and on, letting up occasionally only to resume again a short while later. The floor here seemed more stable and the cracks grew fewer and farther apart, but the continual shaking kept everyone moving at as quick a trot as they could maintain.

Ahead of them, the tunnel opened out into a giant, cavernous area with a deep drop. A narrow bridge without railings spanned the chasm, just wide enough to cross in single file. Unlike the last narrow walkway they'd encountered, this bridge was clearly an intentional part of the cave's original structure rather than being a result of its decay. Stiles could see the impression of walls stretching away below them into the fathomless depths of a great pit, too deep for their lights to penetrate. It put Stiles rather in mind of Moria again. _Only no Balrogs, let's hope._

Once again lagging to the dead rear of the fleeing group, Stiles and Scott were just entering the cavernous room when the first of the mercenaries started sprinting out onto the bridge, taking advantage of the momentary lull in the quaking.

They'd only made it a handful of steps before the man in the lead was struck by a sudden barrage of thick, dark arrows. The sharp-tipped shafts sliced into his body armor and stuck there. They may or may not have penetrated it deeply enough to kill, but the force with which they struck was just as deadly. The impact threw the unfortunately man stumbling sideways and he toppled off the bridge in a Hollywood-worthy swan dive. Gage, who had been behind him, immediately held up his fist in a gesture to stop. "Back! Back!" he urged, getting everyone off the bridge as quickly as possible.

This was obviously an unpleasant surprise to them all, but a tiny, skeptical part of Stiles' mind wondered if Gage's escape had been fortuitous, or if he had simply learned to _never_ go first in this place. Stiles suspected the latter.

The men fell back, instinctively taking up defensive positions and aiming their weapons and lights into the darkness across the cavern, looking for their attacker. Nothing moved in the darkness across from them. There was no sign of life in the dimness on the opposite side of the bridge. The cavernous rift stretched away still and unbroken as far as they eye could see to either side. No more shots came.

Stiles and Scott stayed where they were, just inside the mouth of the tunnel. Stiles noticed that there were a number of old weapons standing along one wall of the cavern on this side of the bridge. Half a dozen spears stood together, resting atop a thick bed of ancient straw. They'd probably been leaning against the wall until all the quaking knocked them down. A little further over, three un-strung bows hung within a niche cut into the wall, a coil of bow string and an empty quiver resting beneath each one.

Stiles frowned, thinking the presence of the bows and the fact that they were being shot at with a similar weapon probably wasn't a coincidence. Before he could finish forming the thought, he was distracted by Gage coming over and pulling Scott away with him.

"Mm! Mmm!" Stiles protested, tottering after them as Gage pulled Scott towards the bridge by his shoulder.

"You're going across," Gage told him. "Maybe that was a one-time trap," he said, although he didn't sound like he believed it. "Maybe not. Stay low, don't get thrown off, keep moving," he advised, giving Scott a little push forward.

 _"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!"_ Stiles protested vigorously, but no one was listening to him. He tried to follow, but Aaron casually elbowed him, making him fall on his butt.

Scott surely understood that they were sending him because he was expendable, and had the best chance of surviving if he did get shot, but he did not protest. He cast one glance back towards Stiles and then simply edged out onto the bridge.

Stiles noticed that although Scott was still clearly in a lot of pain, he seemed to suddenly be moving much better than he had earlier. He wondered if Scott's body was somehow adapting to the grievous injuries, or if it was simply Scott's endurance that was increasing. Stiles would have preferred the former, but experience led him to suspect the latter. He suspected that the increase in danger had prompted Scott to find a way to push himself above the pain so he could function. That was a fairly typical Scott response that had nothing to do with him being a werewolf, Stiles had seen him do the same kind of thing many times before he was bitten. It was why Scott had always managed to stay active in sports and on the Lacrosse team despite his severe asthma. When he was determined to do something, Scott found the strength to do it and when the pressure was on, he would push himself past his limits to reach the goal. His limits were just a lot higher, now.

With some difficulty, Scott went down on his hands and knees. He crawled rather than walked across the bridge, seeking better purchase and attempting to stay out the crosshairs of whoever or whatever was doing the shooting. Only half of that effort succeeded.

Stiles jerked, his heels scrubbing anxiously against the floor when more arrows sang out of the darkness on their right. Scott cried out when one struck him, embedding deeply in his thigh. Several more whistled overhead, missing him. The tracking system obviously wasn't perfect, but Scott was not in a good condition to absorb more pain or injury right now. He wavered, but hung on and didn't fall. His claws bit into the stone bridge as he doggedly dragged himself the rest of the way across.

Stiles practically didn't breathe for the rest of the journey, until Scott finally made it off the far end of the bridge. Thankfully, no more shots came.

The mercenaries had pumped several bursts of machine gun fire into the darkness in the direction from which the shots had originated after the first attack, and continued to sporadically pepper fire in that direction. There was nothing visible to target, however, and Stiles doubted that it would do much good. _Although ..._ he frowned, an idea niggling at him as he watched Scott half crawl, half stumble up the sharp incline on the other side of the chasm. The ground sloped up before dipping again and from this vantage point it was impossible to see what was on the other side. Scott reached the top and tottered for a moment when his hand met what acted like open air. He tried to right himself, but his reflex and his balance was too impaired and he lurched forward, disappearing abruptly from view with a yelp.

"MMMMM!" Stiles cried in alarm behind the gag, struggling to his knees.

"Ow, ow, _fuck_..." Scott's faint voice from across the chasm was a welcome sound, despite the agony in the muttered groan.

"I'm okay!" he called a second later, raising his voice to be heard. His tone was breathless and ragged, suggesting he was very _not_ okay, but at least he wasn't _dead_. "There's a really steep drop-off over here. I don't think I can climb back out," he reported. "There's... I think there's a door."

"Is it open?" Gage called back. "Does it say anything? Try it out." He waited impatiently for several long moments. "Well?"

"Just... Just a minute. Working on it," Scott replied, his strangled tone making it clear how badly he was hurting after the fall. He probably wasn't moving very good as his body struggled to cope with all the new and aggravated damage.

"Clock is ticking, kid." Gage prodded again after a minute, making Stiles want to kick him over the cliff, or better yet, fill _his_ insides up with knives, shove _him_ off a cliff, and see how well _he_ moved after that.

"There's ... there's a door, but it's locked," Scott reported. There was the faint thumping sound of him trying to force it. "It won't open. There's no writing and nothing over here that looks like it would open the door. I mean, this is pretty much just a pit with a door," he warned.

The ground started shaking again and everyone swore. The walls creaked and rocks fell from the cliffs that formed the chasm, tumbling into the depths below.

Stiles struggled to his feet and started leaning against the nearest walls until he finally lit up the inscription he'd been hoping to find. Glowing letters appeared on the wall above the weapon racks.

 _"When strength and endurance are not enough, what have you then? Three shots will fell your foe."_

The letters wavered and jarred in his vision for a minute before the quake abated again, but they all knew it was only a matter of time before there would be another. They needed to get across that bridge before there _was_ no more bridge. The mercenaries seemed to feel the same urgency.

Gage looked considering at the writing on the wall. His gaze went to the bows, but shifted away again when he saw the quivers were empty. "Well, we gave it a lot more than three shots, maybe that's the issue," he said somewhat dubiously. Drawing his hand gun he leveled it in the direction from which the earlier shots had come and popped it three times in slow, deliberate succession.

"Anything?" he called to Scott.

"Nope!" Scott called back.

He looked at Stiles, taking a step towards him before he stopped and seemed to change his mind, turning towards the others instead.

"Could be someone needs to cross the bridge after the shots have been taken. We'll draw straws." He gathered up a handful of the dry, ancient straw from beneath the spears, cut one short and mixed them up in his hand with just the ends sticking out.

He made a show of drawing one himself, it was long. Aaron immediately picked next, while the odds were still the best, Stiles thought, and drew another long. Gage held the straws out towards the others. "It's the fall we have to worry about, not the arrows. Whoever goes across, we'll rig them up in one of the climbing rigs and tether on this side, so if they fall, we'll just pull them back up," he added encouragingly.

This seemed a reasonable plan and the others reluctantly played along.

"I don't see why we don't just send the other kid," the man who drew the short straw grumbled a little, glancing at Stiles as he buckled into the climbing harness. This drew a little good natured jibing from his companions about manning up and not being a whiner.

"Because, he's the only one on this side that can light things up, in case we need to find a plan B. Here, take this..." Gage pulled the man's thick pack off his shoulder and pushed it into his arms. "Keep it between you and the arrows just in case. We know where the shots come from now, if they come. It's only the impact you have to worry about," he encouraged, clapping the man's body armor. "They're only _arrows._ But keep the pack up anyway. If the arrows do come, return fire, but only three shots."

Stiles actually thought that arrows with enough oomph might be able to penetrate body armor, but the other man reluctantly took Gage at his word and set out. Stiles wasn't so sure it was a matter of trust as a matter of not wanting to look like a coward.

The arrows came, but the man was ready for them and the heavy backpack full of gear acted as an effective shield, absorbing the shots. He'd taken a page from Scott's book and crawled across, so he didn't fall either and was able to both return fire as instructed and make it across. Using an anchor to secure the climbing rope he was still trailing to the top of the drop-off, he rappelled down out of sight.

"Door's still not open," he reported.

"Well, damn," Gage swore.

"We can get across okay, but that doesn't do us any good if the door stays shut," Aaron stated the obvious. "Maybe we just need to all be over there, like the first one where everyone had to touch it?" he suggested.

"Maybe, but we could all just end up trapped over there. I have a nasty feeling guns aren't doing the trick, here. This place wasn't made for these kind of weapons. I think we're supposed to use those bows over there, but the bastards didn't leave us any arrows and we didn't know to bring any,"

"Mmm! Mm mmm mmm m mm mmmm mmmmmMM!" Stiles interrupted them, trying hard to get Gage's attention. He gestured his head towards the arrows. "Mm MM mmm MM MM mmm," he hummed in frustration, struggling to make them understand him.

"We know, use the bows, but there's no arrows. Chill, kid," Aaron said in annoyance, planting his hand on Stiles' face and pushing him backward by the forehead.

Stiles shook his head violently, shrugging Aaron's hand off and literally hopping in frustration. "MMMM! Mmmmm mm mmmmm," he insisted.

Gage sighed and reached for him. Stiles flinched, instinctively tensing and shying from hands that had hit him often enough to make him wary. All Gage did this time, however, was unbuckle the top strap of the gag. He eased the ball out of Stiles' mouth and let the contraption slide down to hang around his neck.

"Okay, _what_?" he demanded.

Stiles worked his sore mouth in relief, licking his lips and stretching his aching jaw. Freedom felt _wonderful._ He had never been so glad to get rid of something in his life.

"Th-the arrows," he rasped, voice surprisingly scratchy around the soreness of his mouth and throat. "I know how to get them. They're intentionally missing. _When strength and endurance aren't enough, then what do you do?_ " he paraphrased. "When you can't _out strength_ something, you _outthink_ it. You get clever. Figuring out how to g-get them is the _point._ "

"Okay, I'm listening. How do you suggest we do that?" Gage asked.

Stiles hesitated and shook his head, turning around and offering them his bound hands. "Un-cuff me and I'll show you."

"Oh-ho," Aaron barked a laugh. "That's the game, huh? Maybe I'll just beat it out of you, huh? How's that? _If_ you even know _anything_." He grabbed the back of the gag and yanked Stiles back towards him, making the straps dig into his throat.

Stiles whimpered and coughed, stumbling backwards to keep from choking. He hunched, body almost shaking when he felt Aaron right behind him. He was afraid of them and he couldn't deny it. He just wasn't afraid enough to back down. "Come _on,_ I'm no danger to you and these slow me down! I'll never make it across the bridge like this. You cuffed me because you were mad, not because you _need_ me cuffed. So okay, point taken and lesson learned all right? We don't have time for this! Gage... the next quake could take out that bridge entirely. Come on!" he reasoned desperately, appealing to Gage because he knew Aaron would be just as happy to beat him anyway.

Aaron jerked back on him and Stiles tensed, pulling his head into his shoulders and clenching his eyes.

"Aaron," Gage stopped him, taking Stiles by the shoulder and pulling him away from his brother. "Not now." He turned Stiles around and took hold of his wrists, unlocking the cuffs.

"You're just gonna give this little bitch what he wants?" Aaron scoffed incredulously, not liking being rebuffed.

"If it even _might_ get us out of here one moment faster than standing around and arguing, or knocking his teeth out will? _Yes,_ " Gage shot back coolly.

"He don't know _shit_ , Gage, he-"

"Maybe not, but I'm open to suggestions right now," Gage shot back tightly. "You saw how he and Reese were together. Well, Reese is _gone,_ Aaron. You get me?"

Apparently Aaron did because he fell silent.

Stiles ignored their argument for the most part. He had already made his way over to the weapon rack, surreptitiously unbuckling the gag from around his neck and pitching it into a dark corner in the process. With any luck, they wouldn't notice. He hefted one of the spears, testing its length and weight. He saw the others looking at him warily and quickly raised his other hand. "Part of the solution, that's all, I swear. I totally do not have enough strength to do anything dangerous with this, trust me."

The spears were heavy and long, at least seven feet. Honestly, Stiles didn't know how _anyone_ had been able to fight with them, you'd have to have been really strong. Fighting wasn't what he had in mind however. He cast about, trying to decide the best option.

"Maybe I can borrow one of those packs..." he said, eyeing one of the men's gear bags, but he quickly shook his head. "Mm, no, that's gonna be too heavy." For him, anyway, he didn't think he could manage that kind of weight _and_ the spear at this angle. Not in his current condition.

Eyeing the straw at his feet, Stiles quickly whipped his t-shirt off over his head. Tying the neck hole off into a knot, he crouched and started shoving straw in the other side, filling it up like a pillow and packing it tight. "Probably what this was here for," he murmured, thinking aloud as he quickly stuck the pointy end of the spear in through the middle of the straw. He wiggled the tip out around the gaps in the knot and then tied the free ends of the shirt around the spear's haft. What he ended up with was something like a poor man's abbreviated scarecrow on a pike, but he thought it would do.

"What the hell are you doing?" Aaron demanded as Stiles carried his scarecrow over towards the bridge.

"Getting us some arrows," Stiles replied, like it was obvious. Standing at the very edge of bridge, as close as he could without actually being on it, Stiles held the spear out in front of him, waving the straw-stuffed shirt about in a very bad approximation of someone walking over the bridge.

"Hmm, hmm ... I'm a hapless traveler, with no idea I'm about to be impaled..." Stiles hummed to himself, as if the side-ways scarecrow were talking. Nothing happened for a moment and he edged out a little further, extending the spear as far as he could.

Arrows whistled out of the darkness. One passed right through the stuffed shirt, but another stuck in the thick straw padding, as they had stuck in the man's backpack before. Stiles quickly reeled the spear back in, extracted the arrow, and held it out to Gage. "There's one," he said. "Now we only need two more."

The others had already figured it out, as soon as they saw what Stiles was doing with the spear. Two of the other men had grabbed up spears and were busy fixing partially empty packs and rolled blankets on the ends. Gage took the arrow from Stiles and grabbed one of the bows. The ground began to rumble faintly again and the men crowded to the edge of the bridge, waving the spears urgently.

Fortunately for them, the bows and bowstrings were remarkably well preserved and still pliant. Gage and Aaron strung them with an alacrity that suggested familiarity with the process. Notching the first arrow, Gage fired it into the darkness in the direction of this supposed "foe" of theirs. Aaron snatched the next arrow as it was retrieved and followed suit.

The quaking intensified, the ground shaking violently. Stiles stumbled and lost his grip on the unwieldy spear scarecrow he was still holding. It tumbled away from him, rolling and pitching over the side of the cliff as he scrambled backwards, arms cart wheeling as he tried not to follow it.


	14. Crimson Lotus

**"Crimson Lotus"**

* * *

Scott braced against the door as the ground started shaking again in earnest. Small rocks tore loose from the steep walls above, bouncing down into the little enclosure. He could smell the fear rolling off the other man waiting with him. The man hadn't been crazy about being trapped in this relatively small space with a werewolf, Scott could tell that since he arrived, but now his fear was much sharper and more pungent.

Scott was scared too. "Stiles!" he shouted in alarm. "Stiles!" He couldn't see what was happening back on the other side from here and his helpless anxiety spiked sharply. He'd heard Stiles' conversation with Gage and Aaron unfold while he was extracting the arrow from his thigh, so he knew that at least his friend was unbound now, which gave him a better chance, but being in the dark about what was going on over there was still agonizing.

Suddenly, the door gave under his hand, sliding open and nearly sending him tumbling through it. He caught himself on the frame, wincing and gasping at the pain. "It's open!" he croaked, then again, louder. "It's open! The door's open!"

A few moments later, a head appeared over the edge of the hole. The man was holding his pack in front of him, but quickly re-shouldered it before scrambling down the rope his compatriot had secured. Scott assumed he'd been taking precaution against the arrows, but since there weren't any present, that part of the trap had probably deactivated when the door opened.

Gage appeared next, then Aaron, then Stiles. Scott pressed against the wall, letting the others hurry past him through the door until Stiles appeared. As soon as Stiles reached the bottom they hurried out together, the remainder of the group still scrambling down after them.

They were back in another long stretch of tunnel. The ground continued to shake and every hurried step jarred the blades inside him, but Scott pushed on, pulling on the same reserves he reached for when breaking through mountain ash. The pain was intense, but he could push through it, at least for now. He had to.

A bubble of ground disappeared almost right under them on their left, forcing he and Stiles to dodged around it. An aborted scream from somewhere behind them suggested that someone else had not fared as well.

The air filled with dust as the passage rocked and convulsed. They could just see Gage and Aaron's backs half a dozen yards further along and they followed the bobbing beams of their flashlights in the gloom.

Suddenly, a huge section of the ceiling came crashing down ahead of them. Scott threw his arm out, catching Stiles to stop his forward motion as they back-pedaled, trying to stay out of the way without falling into any cracks. Gage and Aaron were too far forward to avoid the slide. A gigantic slab careened directly down towards Gage. To Scott's surprise, rather than retreat out of danger, Aaron charged forward and threw himself into his brother's back, trying to shove him clear. Dust blossomed and roiled, obscuring everything and leaving Scott and Stiles both choking and coughing.

They picked their way ahead carefully through the fog and for a minute Scott thought both their captors had been crushed, but as the dust started to settle he saw them struggling dazedly to their feet. Scott and Stiles were almost level with them by now and the four of them hurried on more or less together.

Gage had lost his flashlight and amid the choking, rolling dust, they didn't realize they were coming to the end of the passage until they almost ran smack into a closed door.

"Fuck!" Aaron pounded impotently on it with his fist. The casing around the doorway looked disturbingly like the giant, open mouth of a beast, framed by long, curved fangs, but there wasn't time to worry much about the creepy architecture right now.

Stiles practically threw himself against the door, pressing his hands to the stone and urgently searching for the lighted inscription they had come to expect. A single word appeared above the door, but all it said was _"Enter"._

"Well, _THAT'S_ helpful!" Stiles said in sarcastically confused alarm. "What does it think we're _trying_ to do!" He pated along the door and wedged his fingers into one edge, attempting to physically pry it open, for lack of a better option.

Scott wasn't so sure that was going to do any good, but he certainly didn't have any other ideas, so he moved forward to help. Reaching out, he placed his hands against the door near Stiles', ready to pry at it with whatever strength he had left ... but he didn't need to. He didn't even get the chance to try. As soon as he touched the door, it simply slid open for them.

He blinked at it in surprise for a moment and found Stiles giving him a thoughtful, sideways look. Then Gage and Aaron were pushing them both forward. The rest of the remaining mercenaries had caught up and were at their back now and they all piled urgently through the doorway... only to find themselves facing another dead end.

They found themselves standing in a completely empty, circular room with no door but the one they came in through. There were a multitude of wide circles carved into the ground all around the room, set inside the arms of a larger circle that ringed the entire room, but the room was otherwise empty and unadorned.

There was a loud crash as more of the tunnel came down behind them, blocking the door through which they'd come and forcing them hurrying further forward into the strange, empty room. The instant he and Stiles crossed the edge of the large, outside circle that ran around the border of the room, all the smaller circles within suddenly glowed to life.

The circles dropped downward about four feet, creating multiple, circular depressions in the floor. Scott looked down into the one closest to him and saw what looked like some kind of star-shaped flower inside. Going to some of the others he saw that they too each contained a different, single flower shape at the bottom.

"Stiles?" He looked questioningly at his friend. Stiles was over by the wall, running his hand all along the outer rim. Scott realized that although the flowers had illuminated, there was no inscription in here. Stiles was checking to be sure this was intentional and they weren't missing anything.

"Now what?" Gage demanded, still coughing. It was as much a statement of frustration as a question, but his gaze went to Stiles anyway.

"Working on it ..." Stiles circled the room and walked quickly between the holes, peering down into several of them. "Okay, so... the number of holes, they match how many people are in our party," he said, doing a quick head-count.

Scott saw that he was right, and that there were a lot fewer of the mercenaries left than there had been not so long ago.

"There are other circles that didn't light up," Stiles continued, nudging one of the inert carvings in question with his toe. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose and gestured in that agitated way he did when he was trying to think fast.

"It's like in the beginning," Scott observed, seeing where his friend was going. "How it didn't open until we all did the bow. This place knows how many of us there are, somehow. It's aware of us in some way."

"Yes, exactly," Stiles pointed at him. He paced, agitated. " _Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly_ ," he muttered. "I hate being the fly. Although ... I guess I wouldn't want to be the spider either, really, because then you'd have to eat flies," he added distractedly. "Of course, flies eat pretty nasty things too..."

Scott was familiar with the often incomprehensible way Stiles' mind worked and how his friend could spend five minutes talking about socks and then suddenly come up with the completely unrelated answer to the homework question they'd been trying to figure out earlier.

Gage, however, was not so familiar with Stiles' unconventional methods of processing things. "We are out of time, here. You have any ideas or not?" he snapped as the room shook violently, quivering like it was going to shake itself apart. A crack appeared in the wall and a chunk of the ceiling fell, others threatening to follow.

Scott was annoyed that everybody expected Stiles to have the answers they couldn't come up with themselves, but he wasn't really one to talk, he was kind of hoping Stiles could figure it out too. Because he kind of usually did.

"Okay, okay!" Stiles spun in a circle, trying to take everything in. "Um, okay, everybody pick a hole and get in!" he called.

"Are you sure?" Aaron asked skeptically.

Stiles fixed him with a scathing look. _"Hell no_ , I am pulling this out of my ass, but you wanted an idea so there it is. Can't hurt to try."

Apparently the others were of the same mind because most of the remaining mercenaries were already hopping down into the depressions without argument.

Scott peered over the edge of the hole nearest him, gathering himself for the inevitably agonizing jar that dropping into it was going to cause. At the bottom, the glowing image of a lotus flower blurred as it shook back and forth under the force of the quake.

Someone grabbed his arm right before he jumped down and Scott jerked in surprise, turning to find Stiles at his elbow, holding him back. Stiles shook his head and pulled Scott towards the other nearest hole a few paces ahead. They nearly ran into Aaron as he approached from the other direction. He jumped down into the hole Stiles had been heading for, so Stiles kept going, tugging Scott along and finally directing him towards another empty hole.

There wasn't time for questions, so Scott simply complied, trusting his friend's guidance implicitly. He hoped down into the hole, grimacing at the flare of expected pain. Leaning against the shaking lip of the depression, he pressed his other arm to his burning stomach. His shirt was wet under his arm, blood dripping to the floor under him and scattering spots of crimson across the glowing orchid beneath his feet.

Across the room, Gage dropped down into the hole beside his brother that Scott had almost taken earlier, leaving Stiles the last one still out. Scott knew there were enough places for all of them, but couldn't help feeling tense anyway as Stiles scuttled in a tight circle, looking for the remaining empty slot amid the falling stones and chaos of the collapsing room. He spotted it after a moment and hurried over, looking anxious. Biting his lip as he slid over the side and into the hole, Stiles peered down reluctantly, as if afraid of what he might see. Scott thought he saw his friend relax a little at whatever he _did_ see, but he couldn't be sure because at that moment the ground dropped sickeningly beneath his feet.

Scott reeled back from the edge only just in time to keep from smacking against it as the circle beneath his feet receded further into the floor, the room disappearing into a tunnel of black as he dropped away like he was standing on his own, personal mini-elevator.

For a long, suffocating moment everything was dark and there was stone rushing by a few inches from his face. Then he dropped beneath the layer of stone and suddenly he found himself hurtling through a vast, empty space, accompanied by the others who had been in the chamber with him. They were all hurtling downward together through a thick, velvet darkness.

Scott thought he was free-falling, and his heart jumped into his throat. He started to flail, terror pumping through his veins, only to find he couldn't move. Only his eyes responded to his commands and when he looked down he found he was still standing on the same circle of stone he'd been on before, the bloodied orchid still glowing brightly. He felt unbalanced and had no idea how he didn't pitch right off the little disc, but whatever temporary paralysis had him, it seemed to be holding him fastened in place as he descended. This _was_ a descent, he realized, not a fall. He wasn't tumbling, he was staying perfectly upright on his circle as it plunged downward, like an elevator ride through the ether.

This was true for everyone, he realized. That was why he could see them. Each man was illuminated by the glowing image on the stone under his feet, which seemed to cast an unnaturally bright light upward that illuminated only that stone's occupant. Around them there was only darkness. The discs had shifted together, forming into the shape of a ring and making it feel a little like parachuting in formation, only without the chutes. Even though Scott's senses and the aching, instinctive response in his gut told him they were still falling, the complete lack of any visual cues in the blackness around them made him feel like they were all just floating there, suspended in space.

Scott tried to get a look at Stiles, but his friend was on his right and the angle of the circle combined with the current inflexibility of his neck meant that Scott could only just see him if he looked hard to the side. He seemed okay though.

Then the configuration shifted again. Gage's stone floated away from the edge, moving into the center of the circle while the others adjusted to remove the gap. Everyone looked about as puzzled by this as Scott but he felt something uneasy shift inside him. This just didn't seem good for some reason.

He would have liked to have been wrong. He wasn't.

Blood suddenly blossomed on the front of Gage's body. It was as if an invisible blade was slicing into his chest in much the same way he and Aaron had done to Jade and Wilson earlier. Only this unseen weapon was impossibly sharp, cutting effortlessly through shirt, kevlar and flesh and grotesquely flaying the man open. He screamed, but he couldn't move. None of them could move. They couldn't even look away. They were frozen, watching.

When the gruesome invisible force that had him reached into Gage's gaping chest and pulled out his heart, Scott finally understood for sure what was happening. This was another sacrifice. Only somehow, for some reason, it had chosen Gage.

Gage was soaked in blood, his vivisected body brutally on display and Scott struggled to look away. His straining gaze landed on Stiles. His friend looked pale and had his eyes clenched tightly shut.

A strange humming sound surrounded them, like the wind, or a long drawn out sigh. There was something deeply unsettling about it.

A choked sound drew his gaze unwillingly back to the dying man ... no, the _dead_ man. He looked back just in time to see Gage's lifeless body slump, his paralysis gone. Then he simply disappeared, as if absorbed by the ether through which they fell, and the only sound left was that of Aaron, screaming in rage and dismay.

A minute later the blackness around them began to have texture and dimension once more, giving way to the by now familiar black stone of which the labyrinth was built. Their decent slowed and the remaining members of the party landed safely. With little more than a gentle bump, the stone discs came to rest, sinking into waiting depressions that mirrored the pattern they had been in before, in the room above. With a flash of light, the discs merged back into the floor and the glowing flowers disappeared.

An eerie silence reined and a cool, diffused light illuminated their surroundings, making the whole chamber feel as if it were bathed in moonlight. Scott felt the strange paralysis release when discs disappeared into the floor, but for a moment everyone remained motionless anyway.

The ground here was still and unmoving. The sudden peace was surreal after the absolute bedlam they had just left behind. Scott wasn't sure if the quake they had been running from had stopped, or if their journey just now had taken them away from it by transporting them to some different part of the cave.

He looked around, his senses prickling. He felt ... _something_ , but he wasn't sure _what_. It was almost like there was another presence somewhere nearby, but he could hear or smell no signs of anyone other than the group with which he'd arrived. Yet the sensation persisted, something unknown that whispered just at the edges of his consciousness and tugged at his instincts.

He stepped off the circle and walked out into large gallery in which they found themselves, feeling strangely dazed and weightless. The walls of the gallery were full of more carved reliefs. They were so large as to be life-sized and the bright colors seemed to swim strangely before his eyes. Illuminated in silver tones by the pervasive quasi-moonlight, danced fantastic images of creatures who were half-beast, half man. It was more of the familiar leopard men... but no, something in Scott whispered that wasn't quite right. _Not leopards. Jaguars._

He ran his fingers along the lines of the nearest carvings, following them, tracing the story they told with slow, dream-like steps. In one frieze, the half-beasts were arranged in a circle of flowers, watching a human figure in a headdress who hung suspended between them. His chest was torn open in a vivid splash of crimson, making the whole scene eerily reminiscent of what had just happened to Gage.

In the next panel, there were no longer any human depictions, only the half-beasts arrayed in two concentric circles around a giant Lotus from which sprouted the head, shoulders and breasts of a woman. The woman had ears and spots, and a water lily was growing out of her forehead. All the creatures were kneeling about her as if in reverence. The outer circle of beings had small trees growing out of their chests and the inner circle...

Scott pulled back, yanking his fingers away as if he'd been burned. His chest lurched and his heart raced, making his already foggy head spin.

The inner circle of half-beasts wore headdresses and masks made from long, wicked looking skulls. In the image, the lotus woman was in the process of placing one of these masks upon the upturned face of the supplicant kneeling directly in front of her.

Scott barely even noticed the third image, where the creatures in the masks were now depicted as full bodied Jaguars, roaring with power and cavorting around a larger Jaguar with a lotus growing from its forehead. He was stuck on the image of the hands holding out that skull-decked mask.

Scott closed his eyes, palms clammy and breath shallow as the image conjured up a jumble of memories that strobed like flash bulbs in his brain.

 _The ruined church. The alter. Terror and confusion and gritty stone under his back._

 _Kate. Were-jaguar Kate, standing over him and holding out a long, wicked looking skull mask._

 _The mask descending, smothering him like a cap pressed to a candle. The sensation of clutching darkness that snuffed his reason and subjugated his will, making him prisoner in his own flesh._

 _Kira's stunned, pained expression. Kira's blood on his hands..._

Eyes springing open, Scott stumbled backwards, forcing himself away from the images on the wall, and from the memories. They were in enough trouble right now without him borrowing any more trauma from the past.

He blinked, trying to think clearly and failing. Everything seemed extra sharp and clear and yet somehow disconnected. He felt weirdly intoxicated, buzzed in a way he'd not been able to experience since becoming a werewolf.

Scott sucked in deep breaths, trying to get air, but each inhalation only increased the feeling of intoxication. He was dimly aware of some kind of commotion happening behind him. Men were talking in harsh, angry tones, but the words blurred together into a meaningless rumble. He barely even noticed the constant pain of his own injuries. None of it seemed to matter.

His body hummed with a sensation akin to the tug of the full moon. It reminded him of that almost forgotten feeling he'd experienced long ago, when he'd been newly turned and had first heard Peter howling. It thrummed in his blood with a gut deep, instinctive compulsion he'd not understood then, and understood no better now.

The darkness of the tunnel mouth ahead of him beckoned, strangely welcoming and compelling. It drew on him like a magnetic force and without even realizing what he was doing, he started moving towards it, shuffling forward like a sleepwalker caught in a dream.

A familiar voice cried out in pain somewhere in the fog behind him. The sound pulled Scott up short. _He knew that voice._ The rich, coppery scent of blood filled his nose and the wolf beneath his skin became suddenly anxious and alert. The blood, too, was familiar, and that realization brought him crashing back to reality.

 _Stiles!_ The single thought cut through the haze building around his mind and Scott yanked free of the strange compulsion stealing over him. The world rushed back in on him, all the sounds and thoughts and pain that had seemed so distant before assaulting him at once. He spun around to find Aaron holding Stiles pinned to the wall a few dozen yards away. Stiles' nose was bleeding. He was curled forward in Aaron's grip, gasping for air in a way that suggested he'd just been punched in the gut.

Alarmed that he could have been so totally oblivious to what was going on around him that he hadn't even realized Stiles was being hurt, Scott moved quickly back towards them.

"Hey, hey, what's...?"

Before he could intervene, Scott found his path blocked by several of the others. When he attempted to shoulder past them, one of them grabbed the wire handle protruding from his back, giving it a warning tug. The action made the hooks inside Scott shift and the agonizing surge of pain almost sent him to his knees. He managed to keep his feet, but was forced to fall still to avoid further damage. He curled his arm against his stomach and breathed harshly through grit teeth.

He needed to protect Stiles, but he had to be realistic about their situation and his own condition. He was handling the pain, but that didn't change the fact that beneath his resolve, his body was terribly weak. He knew that one more fight might be all he had left; he needed to save it for when it could do some good. So, Scott let them hold him back for the moment, waiting to see what would happen next before reacting. He hoped Aaron was done with Stiles and would just let him go.

Unfortunately, Aaron wasn't anywhere near being done.

"You fucking sneaky little bitch," Aaron seethed in Stiles' face as he practically crushed him back against the wall. "I tried to warn Gage, I knew you were up to no good. You think you're so fucking clever, don't you? You _killed my brother_ you little fuck!" He drove his fist into Stiles' gut again, wringing a strangled cry from the captive teen.

"I-I didn't," Stiles gasped out, voice stuttering with his pained efforts to breathe. His long fingers pried uselessly against the arm restraining him. "I couldn't know that was going to happen, man! C-come on!"

"Oh no?" Aaron gripped the hair on the top of Stiles' head and yanked his head back, leaning in menacingly close. "Then why did you pull your little friend away from that spot, huh? Why didn't you want _him_ to use that lift? Oh yes, I saw you. I'm not stupid. Somehow, you _knew._ You killed Gage on purpose, and you are going to be very, very sorry."

Stiles shook his head desperately. "No, see, I was only trying..."

Aaron pressed one callused finger to Stiles' lips, shushing him. "Shh, don't lie," he murmured in a voice that was suddenly deceptively soft. He drew his knife with unnerving quickness. Still holding Stiles' hair, he pressed the tip of the blade just under Stiles' left eye. "Because the next time you lie to me, I'm gonna cut this pretty little eye right of your head. Then, I'll move on to the next one," he promised darkly.

Stiles panted through parted lips, from fear more than a need for oxygen. His hands rested cautiously on Aaron's arms, but he seemed to know that fighting would only guarantee that the threat was carried out. He swallowed, his tongue darting out to lick his lips.

"O-Okay, okay, look ... I did have a bad feeling about that spot, okay? But it wasn't ... I mean, I couldn't explain _why._ Everything was crazy and the room was coming apart and it's not like there was time to toss around theories or have a discussion about potential risks, all right? I don't know why I felt uneasy, maybe that one was a little brighter than the others, maybe the hole was a little deeper, maybe it's this creepy place talking to me in some creepy way I don't understand, I don't know!"

Scott's stomach twisted. He could tell Stiles was lying. He desperately hoped Aaron couldn't.

"What did you expect me to do?" Stiles pressed, the words tumbling out of him rapidly. "What could I have said: ' _I have a bad feeling about this'?_ What the hell good would that have done us? I was just being paranoid, I mean, could have been wrong, and delaying could have gotten us _all_ killed."

Aaron bared his teeth in derision, his face livid. "Maybe. _Maybe_ you had a bad feeling, or maybe you _planned_ this," he growled, the knife tip digging in harder, starting to draw blood in the soft flesh below Stiles' eye.

"I didn't!" Stiles swore, straining to keep his head as far back as possible. "I didn't _know_ **_anything_** was gonna happen, not for sure. You wanna get pissed at me that I would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to my friends? Fine, be pissed at me for that. You wanna be pissed that none of you have given me reason to feel that paranoid about you? Go ahead and be pissed about that too. But I did _not_ **_plan_** for that to happen to Gage. Trust me, if I'd _planned_ it? It would have been _you_ in there, _not_ your brother." Stiles had retreated into sarcasm. His tone was snarky and he wasn't lying this time.

Stiles glared at Aaron defiantly and Scott's fists clenched warily at his sides. _Stiles, why do you always have to poke the bear...?_

"I didn't want that to happen to Gage," Stiles said more quietly, still holding the older man's gaze stubbornly. " _Think_ about it, why would I? He had the _key_ , Aaron, and he's _gone_. We're _all_ fucked now."

A renewed babble of angry and dismayed voices rose in the wake of that horrifying truth, which most of the party either hadn't processed yet, or had been subconsciously putting off facing until now, when it could be avoided no longer.

Scott's blood felt cold in his veins. Without the key, there was no way to open the second portal even if they could find it. There was no way out of here.

The other mercenaries were talking urgently among themselves, a few reverting to shared native tongues. Aaron, however, seemed to have tunnel vision, making him temporarily indifferent to their situation and the rest of his group's mood. His dark gaze remained fixed on Stiles.

Aaron lowered his knife and sheathed it back on his vest. Interestingly, Stiles' defiance seemed to convince him of his sincerity in a way that no amount of begging probably would have. "You have any more _bad feelings_ , kid, and you had _better_ share with the group. I don't give a fuck what's going on, you'll tell me, or there will be _consequences._ Because from now on, anything bad happens to _anybody_ , for _any reason_ and I am gonna take it right of _your_ hide."

Stiles' head bobbled in an immediate, shaky nod. He seemed relieved the knife was gone and didn't even protest the incredible unfairness of that arrangement. "Got it, I understand."

Aaron smiled, something dark, vindictive and hungry flashing in his eyes. Stiles tensed up again and his face paled, as if he saw in those eyes that he wasn't nearly as out of the woods as he'd thought. "No, you don't," Aaron told him. "Not yet, but you _will._ " He pulled Stiles forward abruptly by his shoulder and threw him to the ground. "Hold him," he barked at the others.

They hesitated to comply, clearly seeming to feel their time best spent in other pursuits. An older man with a beard and a mild Slavic accent shook his head. "Aaron, come on, we are still on a time limit, here. We need to figure this out, talk about what to do next. Are we still trying to find the other door? I mean, without the key..."

Aaron rounded on the man, eyes flashing. He slammed his foot down on Stiles' back, pushing him flat and pinning him in place as he tried to get up. "What do you want to talk about, Nosek? Without the key, we're going to have to fucking improvise if we hope to fucking survive. Our best fucking hope of that, might be these fucking kids, but not if this one thinks he can get us picked off one by one with no consequences. Unless you want to fucking die right fucking now, you will do as I fucking say and fucking hold him down!" Aaron was screaming by the end, rage and profanity spilling out of him and onto the other man, and the group at large.

The other men weren't happy, but either they saw some twisted logic in what he said, or they were simply too afraid of the large, semi-crazed man themselves to disobey when he was in a mood this foul. Nosek didn't move, but a younger man with short blonde hair knelt by Stiles' head and grabbed the teen's wrists.

When Scott saw the man pin Stiles' arms to the ground by his head, his claws popped and his eyes changed. He didn't understand exactly what they intended, but it was nothing good and he was not going to let it happen. He growled low in his throat, his wolf rising much too readily within him.

Nosek pressed a gun to his chest, clearly having seen the change. "Don't make bad situation worse, wolf," he warned. "I don't want to have to kill you for no reason." He grabbed hold of the cable handle protruding from Scott's stomach with his free hand.

"We should. We should kill him," someone else murmured. "Too fucking dangerous. Creatures like that shouldn't even _exist_."

"Don't worry, he's not going to try anything, are you wolfy? Not if you want to keep your insides on the _inside_ of your body, right, boy?" the man behind Scott said, twisting the handle excruciatingly and pulling back, keeping the barb inside him painfully taut. The man in front did the same and the combined pain made him waver on his feet, the world going gray and faded around the edges. Another cruel, mangling twist and they brought him to his knees, dark blood oozing from the wounds as the pain drove his wolf back, forcing him to stay human.

Agony hazed his senses and Scott couldn't think for a moment. The man behind him grabbed him by the shoulder and the tight grip was the only thing that kept Scott upright. They'd kept him weakened like this too long and his body was screaming with the strain of trying to heal yet more damage. His reserves were spent and his strength was failing. He clenched his eyes and his fists against the unbearable pain, struggling to stay conscious. _Oh God, oh God, please make it stop._

"Think it's time for that _conversation_ I promised you, boy. Let's see how well you listen," Aaron snarled, a hint of sadistic anticipation mingled with the rage in his voice.

Scott's eyes flew open at the voice and he saw Aaron standing over Stiles' prone, struggling body. Stiles had managed to pushed up onto his elbows, but there were now two men by his head, each holding one of his arms pinned. Aaron had unsnapped his holster and tucked his gun into the back of his pants. He unbuckled his thick leather belt, pulling it free of his belt loops as Scott watched, and suddenly, Scott understood what was about to happen.

His growl was part whine as he struggled with his uncooperative body, looking for strength he didn't seem to possess. "Stop!" he demanded, his voice harsh and strangled.

"Scott!" Stiles' slightly tremulous voice drew Scott's burning gaze to him. Stiles' heart was thundering in apprehension. He also seemed aware of what was in store for him, but shook his head vigorously. "Don't," he croaked. Stiles turned his face back towards to the floor, letting his head hang between his arms. _"They'll kill you,"_ he whispered, too soft for anyone to hear but Scott.

Stiles was probably right. These men were too on edge, Scott could smell it on them, feel it in their agitation. They were coming unmoored and would strike out viciously at any threat in their desperate attempts to scratch out a survival that some part of them already knew was a lost cause.

The thing was, Scott didn't _care._ There was very little chance of any of them walking out of this now. Scott struggled to breathe deep and slow, fighting to muster his flagging strength and willing his body to heal enough for him to act. He let his wolf's unrelenting, howling rage seep through him and the monster within stirred, hungry and sensing its chance. Scott didn't fight it this time. He was too weak on his own and they wanted the same thing. They wanted to protect Stiles, whatever the cost. _Come on,_ he willed his flagging body. _Come on, just one more time._

Aaron trailed the tail of the belt between Stiles' angular, jutting shoulder blades, drawing it lightly down his back from shoulders to his waist. Holding the strap by the buckle, he caressed the leather across the boy's exposed skin with mocking, threatening gentleness designed to make him dread what was coming. He seemed highly experienced in the art of cruelty.

The man smiled when Stiles shuddered slightly beneath him. He crouched over Stiles, straddling his hips and running his hand down his back. "I was in this prison in Russia once," he murmured. "They did this kind of thing all the time. Kept the troublemakers in line. Only, they weren't terribly careful and didn't really know their business. Didn't know where it was safe to hit and where it wasn't. I saw them beat a man so badly once, they broke his spine. Put him in a wheel chair for life." Aaron smirked, his hand resting where he could feel Stiles' fluttering heart and savor his fear. "Don't worry, though," he mock-assured, patting Stiles' tense shoulder and reaching around under his stomach. "I know what I'm doing. You'll still be _able_ to walk when I'm done with you, you just may not _want_ to."

"Wow, color me _so_ reassured," Stiles shot back at him, twisting as he tried to edge away from Aaron's hands. "Nice to know you're an _experienced_ psychotic sadist. You never know what you're going to get from those loser wannabes, huh?"

Stiles was already shirtless following the incident with the arrows. Aaron unbuttoned his pants and dragged them down his hips to his thighs, exposing him further. He ignored Stiles' squawks of indignant protest and rose back to his feet. Stiles squirmed, struggling and trying to get his knees under him.

"I wouldn't move around too much if I were you, kid, if you don't want to end up like that guy in Russia," Aaron threatened. "Your butt can take a lot more than your back, trust me." He brought the tail of the belt down across Stiles' shoulders, hard, which only made Stiles struggle more. The boy yelped in pain and tugged against the men holding him. Aaron whipped the belt across his ass and Stiles only just managed to stifle another cry.

Aaron lit into him hard and relentless, the belt drawing pink lines across Stiles' pale, freckled flesh. Seeming strangely determined to not to make any more sound than he could help, Stiles bit his lips and pressed his face into his shoulder, shuddering and gasping raggedly as the blows fell.

"O-Okay, okay... _unh_!" Stiles' body strained against the pain in agitated, agonized little motions. "P-Point made, lesson learned. _Nnnhg!_ I'm sorry. You want me to say I'm sorry? I'm sorry. _Mmnh!_ C-can we get back to trying not to die now, maybe? _Aahh!_ Come-come o-on, man, I-I'm not your biggest problem, here!"

"My _brother_ is _dead,_ that's a pretty fucking huge problem to me," Aaron seethed, animated by a lethal mixture of sadism and pure, unreasoning rage. He struck Stiles over and over in the same spot until his skin glowed red and Stiles screamed in his throat.

"Holy fuck, man! _NNh!_ _Fu-fuck_..." Stiles sobbed, unable to hold out, unable to help the cries being torn from him by the torture.

Scott's body went ridged. Stiles' screams sliced through him, galvanizing his resolve and driving him to action. A small, powerless voice of reason whispered to him that Aaron wasn't going to kill Stiles, he only intended to hurt him, but it didn't matter. Scott was too far gone to give sway to reason. He couldn't take this, he just couldn't. No amount of reason, caution or pain could overcome his absolute _need_ to make this stop.

Scott's downcast eyes snapped up to the man in front of him, and they were blood, blood red. He grabbed both of the man's hands in a crushing grip. Fueled by desperation and resolve, Scott held the man's hand on the cable attached to the hook inside him, and _yanked._ He howled in pain, fury and determination as he jerked the pronged spear tip out of his own body, removing their hold over him.

Nosek's finger tightened on the trigger of his gun, but Scott had anticipated that. He yanked the man's arm sideways at the same moment, causing him to shoot his companion over Scott's shoulder instead. The bullet slammed into the man's body armor like a vicious fist, throwing him backwards. Hand still tangled in the wire handle behind Scott, he took the second hook with him.

The long prongs of the second spear tip caught and skittered against Scott's spine before yanking free, tearing him viciously on the way out. The world was red and edged with black around him. He'd taken too much damage. Too much. His human senses failed, leaving only the eyes of the wolf functioning. The brutal removal of the spear heads had all but eviscerated him. Blood and ichor spilled from the grievous wounds. He was only semi-aware of his surroundings, his attention all focused towards Stiles. He was injured too badly, he shouldn't have been able to even move at this point, but he did. Scott threw Nosek away from him with a snarl and surged to his feet.

A gun went off behind him. He reacted instinctively, twisting out of the projectile's path, but his injured body made his movements lag. He avoided getting shot in the center of the back, but the bullet grazed his shoulder. It was not an ordinary bullet.

Scott felt the poison burn into him from wound. The contact was glancing and it wasn't a full dose. Normally, he could have shrugged it off and kept going, even if it had been a point blank wound. It would have caught up with him eventually, but it wouldn't have dropped him. These were not normal circumstances, however. Scott was running on nothing but the dark, thrumming energy of his wolf and the moment the aconite entered his system, their connection fractured.

His body was too weak to sustain itself; he couldn't fight the poison and his injuries. Scott stumbled, lurched and fell. He sprawled on the ground, halfway on his side, halfway on his stomach. He twitched, gasping, but he physically couldn't move. Coldness settled over him, seeping into his bones. His gut was nothing but fire, unbearably hot and searing as if all the heat in his body had gathered there, leaving the rest of him to a slow, freezing death. Pain ate through him like a cancer, still managing to be less agonizing than the hopeless sensation of utter failure. He reached for his wolf but his injured, poisoned body couldn't muster a reaction and it felt like even it had abandoned him, disgusted with his weakness and his inability to ever protect any of the people he loved. _I'm sorry. I'm sorry..._

He wasn't sure why no one finished him off. Maybe they hadn't intended to kill him. Maybe they thought he was already dead. It made no difference. The wolfsbane retarding his healing was devastating in his condition. He started to tremble, his body feeling so, so cold. He was vaguely aware of Stiles screaming his name in panic. His friend was frantic, sobbing around his pain and fear as Aaron continued to whip him mercilessly, completely unfazed by the altercation happening nearby. The man was unhinged, Scott thought. He wasn't rational. He was losing it, and Stiles was paying the price. Scott's fingers curled weakly against the floor and a tear ran down the side of his face.

It was hell, lying there, unable to do anything but watch Stiles being hurt. It was a kind of helplessness he'd not felt since he became a werewolf, and he didn't realize how much he'd not missed it, how much he hated it, until now. The dazed, numbness threatening to slow his heart and leach away his consciousness was almost welcome as it beckoned, offering a permanent end to his suffering. He _could_ fight. His healing had slowed, not stopped. The poison would kill him eventually, but it didn't have to do it right now. If he held on long enough to get past the shock of the aconite's introduction to his messed up system, maybe he could carry on a little longer... but _why?_ He wasn't any good to anyone. He never had been. He couldn't protect the people he loved, he couldn't even trust himself to not become the thing that would kill them, and everything hurt so much. _So much._ It was easier to let go. Just let go now and let it all end.

 _"Scott..."_ the sobbed word between the screams tugged at him and Scott tried to blink back the blackness.

Stiles had given up struggling, his body limp on the floor as Aaron beat him, his tear-streaked face turned towards Scott. Their eyes locked and Scott felt a fist clench in his gut at the sheer desperation of the plea in his friend's swimming gaze.

 _"Don't leave me."_ The words weren't even a whisper. They formed soundlessly on Stiles' trembling lips, like a prayer he didn't expect answered.

"Won't," Scott murmured, blinking sluggishly as he pushed back hard against the cold apathy drawing over him. He couldn't leave Stiles alone here, in this place, with these men. How could he even think of letting that happen? Maybe he was useless and there was nothing he could do but keep suffering this agony until they all died, but at least they would be together. At least he could give Stiles that much.

Faintly, he felt his wolf stir in his chest, responding to his determination and trying to help him. It was weak and hampered by the poison, but as he lay there he felt that strange other presence skittering at his awareness again and his instincts responded, somehow strengthened by the sensation of the power tugging at him. That siren call stirred his wolf, compelling beyond all reason, coaxing it out of hiding despite the pain that was beyond what it should have been able to endure. That probably should have worried Scott, but right now he'd take it. He'd take anything that helped him not abandon his friend.

Scott fought for each breath and heartbeat. He fought to stay conscious and alive while the poison agitated in his blood and his torn insides burned, his vital organs knitting so, so, painfully slowly together. He could endure it. He could do that for Stiles. He wouldn't leave him. He wouldn't. This promise, he would keep.

 _o/o/o/o_

Stiles' skin flamed with pained heat and his eyes burned with tears. _Scott..._ The welts Aaron was giving him burned like a son of a bitch. It hurt so much more than it seemed like it should, or maybe he was just pathetic. _Please be okay, Scott, please be okay..._

Stiles cried out, his body squirming feverishly against the ground as the stinging blows fell. He'd tried. He'd tried so hard not to react, not to make a sound. He'd known Scott was balanced on a knife's edge and he'd tried not to tip him over. He had. It was just too much. It hurt _so_ bad. It felt like the older man was trying to take his skin off.

Aaron was going off the rails and everyone could see it. There was something not sane about his single-minded determination and even his companions appeared to recognize that now. _Had losing Gage pushed him over some kind of edge, or was this what always lurked behind the dark, destructive nature that his brother had somehow kept focused and in check?_ It didn't really matter. As the unlucky recipient of his unreasoning rage, Stiles could only try to endure it and hope it would eventually burn itself out, and that the man wouldn't kill him first.

The lashes started drawing blood and Stiles' screams became desperate.

The men holding Stiles' arms had had enough. They let him go and he scrambled away from Aaron on his hands and knees, as quickly as he could around his shaking arms and tangled, bunched up clothing.

Aaron started to follow, but the others intervened. Their concern not for the injured teen, but for themselves. "If you wanted to teach him a thing or two, you did. I'd say he's got the point pretty well," one of the men told Aaron flatly. "If you want to kill him for your brother, go ahead, I don't give a fuck. But we're not going to wait around here just so you can kick his ass until you feel better. You want to keep having a go at him, fine, you can stay, but we're _not_. This is not what we signed up for, Aaron. None of it is. Either pull yourself the fuck together and contribute, or don't, but we're done, you understand?"

Aaron did not take that well, and a vicious argument ensued. Stiles was more than happy for the unstable man to vent his anger somewhere other than on him. He scuttled further away from the argument, trying to stop shaking and to pull himself together. He yanked his pants up, wincing at the burning sensation when his jeans met raw skin. He hurt, a _lot,_ but Aaron hadn't done him any life threatening harm. Not like Scott.

Stiles crawled over to his friend, his arms still shaking. He felt too unsteady to try standing, and didn't want to risk drawing attention. He was still sobbing and he tried to force himself to stop, because Scott was hurt so much worse than he was and it was just stupid.

"Scott..." he whispered hoarsely, running a shaking hand across his friend's cheek and his neck, caressing him gently before collapsing against his shoulder. He buried his face against Scott's arm and held onto him, not sure if he was trying to offer comfort or receive it, or if he was just hanging on like a drowning man in a storm, because that's what he felt like.

Scott slid one hand up and cupped Stiles' elbow, his fingers curling against him and sliding down Stiles' forearm until he found his hand. There was almost no strength in his weak grip, but he pulled Stiles' hand down and tucked it reassuringly against his chest. His thumb stroked Stiles' palm gently as Stiles shuddered against him, breathing harshly in soft, aborted half-sobs he was trying to smother.

"I'm sorry," Scott murmured, holding onto Stiles, trying to sooth him. "I'm sorry."

Stiles shook his head against Scott's arm and squeezed his hand. "No, _I'm_ sorry," he murmured, breath hiccupping and hitching but finally starting to slow a little.

"Then I guess... we're both pretty sorry, huh?" Scott managed softly and Stiles smiled despite himself.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are." His gaze sobered again as he took in Scott's condition and the clear signs of poison. "Scott... you're..."

"Going to be okay," Scott lied. "Healing better with those things gone," he murmured faintly.

Stiles might have believed that, except for the part where he could see the purple black web spreading across his friend's arm and knew what that meant. "Yeah, that's... that's good," he murmured. He stroked Scott's arm lightly, sniffing and starting to plot how he was going to get what he needed to fix this.

Angry voices traded vicious words behind them. It wasn't just Aaron, everyone was on edge and they were tearing into each other and bickering about how to proceed, and whose fault it was, and all those things people argued about when they started to realize they were all doomed. Stiles hoped they'd all just kill each other and solve one of his problems for him, but the men were unfortunately only raising their voices at this point, not their fists. That might change, though. Tempers were running high.

Stiles shifted on his knees, sliding to sit slouched on one hip in an effort to ease the blaze burning in his rear and throbbing across his back. He rested his cheek against Scott's shoulder.

"Scott, listen," he whispered very softly. "Assuming we actually make it out of this room alive, we need to avoid anything that looks like a lotus or a water lily, okay? I wasn't sure before, but I am now. If there's a bunch of flowers together it's okay, but if it's just that one kind by itself, stay clear. There were lotus flowers in both of the sacrifice chambers," he murmured by way of explanation. "On the post in the first room, on the floor in the second, and every one of those images on the walls that depicted a sacrificial kind of death, they were all framed with _that_ flower. Whoever built this place used it as a symbol of sacrifice and whoever came here in the old days, they probably knew that, like we'd recognize a skull and cross bones." Stiles closed his eyes. "I should have put it together sooner. It's what Lydia saw. I thought that just had to do with the flower truck in the woods, but no, her voices, they were trying to tell her about _this_."

Goosebumps raced up his arms and he shuddered softly, recalling the gut-dropping moment in the chaos of the collapsing room above when it had all snapped together, almost too late. He'd seen the glowing lotus at the bottom of the hole and the blood Scott was trailing in his wake as he headed towards it, and suddenly Lydia's words in the Sheriff's office had come back to him, crisp and urgent. _"A lotus blossom dripping with blood."_ All the random pieces he'd observed but not understood had abruptly coalesced, falling into place in his mind, and he'd _known_.

Stiles heard Scott let out a slow breath as he grasped what had happened, and what had _almost_ happened. He wondered if Scott would think him a little bit of a monster now. Gage had chosen that spot, Stiles hadn't chosen it for him. There had been just as good a chance that Stiles would have to take it himself, since he had ended up the last one in. With most of the holes already filled by the time he thought to care about what flower symbols they held, he hadn't been able to tell how many lotuses might be in play and had actually half expected to get stuck with one himself when he realized he was going to have no choice about where he ended up. He hadn't _wanted_ Gage to die, but the truth remained that when he'd steered Scott away from that place, he'd been pretty sure _someone_ was going to... and he'd been okay with that. So, maybe he _was_ a little bit of a monster then. Especially since he couldn't regret it, not even with Gage's cries in his head or Aaron's angry stripes throbbing across his skin.

Stiles squeezed Scott's hand. _No, he didn't regret it._ The truth was, it didn't really matter what it made him, or what he'd had to pay for figuring it out at the last minute, because the alternative was simply unimaginable.

The mercenaries' argument had finally devolved into a fist fight with several of them participating, and several shouting and trying to break it up. _"How productive,"_ Stiles thought sarcastically.

"Thanks," Scott whispered, squeezing Stiles' hand back with a slight, but encouraging increase in strength. "Guess you kind of saved my life, dude. _Again._ "

For some reason, that wasn't the reaction Stiles expected. He raised his eyebrows and gave a soft, incredulous huff. "Right, 'cause _that_ happens all the time."

"It does, though," Scott murmured. "Don't think I would have made it through being turned without you." His slurred voice was a little dreamlike and he sounded like he might be starting to drift a little.

Stiles frowned at his words, because they seemed apropos of nothing and didn't really make sense. He had helped out, sure, but Allison was the one who had been able to anchor Scott, and really, when it came down to it, Scott had just been good at adapting ... well, okay, maybe with a _few_ bumps.

"Oookay, Scott. Hang in there buddy, don't start with the crazy talk, stay with me," he encouraged, suspecting Scott was getting loopy.

Scott smiled faintly. "I'm not delirious, you jerk," he muttered. "I mean it. You were always there, you know? From the beginning. I was never in it alone. I didn't need Peter, because I already had pack. I had you." He wheezed out a very careful approximation of a laugh. "What did I need with an alpha, when I had you to boss me around and train me?" he teased.

"True," Stiles returned his small grin. "I _have_ always been good at that."

A falling body nearly sprawled across them and Stiles snatched his legs out of the way, hovering protectively over Scott as the man sprang up and dusted himself off.

Stiles felt a slight tremor under his knees. At first he thought it was him, or Scott, but quickly it grew into the familiar sensation of the ground rumbling ominously. The quake was relatively mild compared to the others they'd been experiencing, but it put a quick end to the fighting.

"We need to keep moving," Aaron said, as if that were _his_ idea and he hadn't been the major cause of their delay. Several of the others shot him dirty looks that suggested they were thinking exactly that, but no one disagreed.

"Okay, but I don't think he can until we treat this..." Stiles spoke up, gesturing to creeping poison lines on Scott's arm.

Aaron stalked an angry step closer and Stiles flinched bodily, unable to curb his instinctive reaction to draw away from the man. He caught himself and quickly stopped, drawing himself up on his knees and holding his ground. His body screamed at him as he moved and his palms felt clammy, but his eyes were defiant. Aaron could beat him all he liked, he'd never break him.

Behind him, Scott sat up with a groan of pain. "No, it's okay," he panted. "I can do it. Stiles, I can do it, let's just go." He rested his hand on the top of Stiles' shoulder both for support, and to hold him back. "Just give me a hand up, okay?"

It took all of Stiles' strength to get Scott off the floor. His friend wavered and swayed and collapsed against his side and Stiles pulled Scott's arm around his blistered shoulders with a wince. Scott might actually be a little better off now that he was free of the vicious torture devices they'd forced into him, but the trade off was that he was incredibly weak. Somehow, unbelievably, his werewolf strength was still keeping him alive despite the poison, but it didn't seem able to heal him any more than it took just to keep his heart beating, and there was no telling how long that would last.

"Let's go." Aaron cast a dark look at them before turning away and heading towards tunnel leading out of the gallery. He seemed to think that he was the leader now that Gage was gone, but from the looks that were exchanged behind his back, Stiles could tell the others felt differently. He suspected they fully intended to feed Aaron to the very next obstacle they encountered. The mood of the group was dark and tense. They knew they were all dead men walking, but there was always that tantalizing silver of an imaginary chance out there somewhere.

Stiles felt dizzy with pain as he struggled to navigate he and Scott both forward. Scott's arm rubbing across the raw welts on his back hurt, a _lot_. His whole body ached and Scott was heavy, unable to contribute very much other than staying mostly upright under his own power. Honestly, that was no small thing. The fact that Scott was still _alive_ was amazing, much less that he was able to move, even with help.

This situation was no longer sustainable. The end was coming. Stiles could feel it. There was a little part of him that wondered whether it wouldn't be better to just sit down here and wait peacefully for it to arrive. They weren't going to be allowed to do that though, and it wasn't in his nature, anyway, not really. He didn't wait for things. They'd go out and find death if it waited for them, or maybe they'd find something else. You never knew for sure. It wasn't optimism so much as stubbornness that kept him moving at this point. Being told a thing was impossible had always made him want to do the thing. He was too damn obstinate to give up, and somehow, amazingly, Scott was too. Despite everything that had been done to him, he held onto Stiles and managed to painfully keep shuffling forward.

Scott was right. They'd always been in it together, since the start, and even before that. So many bad things had happened lately that Stiles had started to forget the truths of those more innocent times, the times when he felt like he'd been good for Scott, and able to take care of the people he cared about. The times before darkness had closed around his heart and the thing that stole into his head had warped his view of himself and reinterpreted everything to him.

Stiles stumbled, over-correcting as he tried to handle Scott's weight and Scott shifted, pulling back a bit to keep them balanced. Stiles curled his fingers into Scott's shirt as they held on, supporting one another. They'd started this together, and that was how they'd finish it.


	15. The Heart of the Labyrinth

**"The Heart of the Labyrinth"**

* * *

Scott's breathing had started sounding funny. Stiles would have worried more about it except that his friend was actually leaning on him less and less as they made their way down the long, dim tunnel that led away from the gallery. Most of the mercenaries had lost their flashlights and only two beams probed the tunnel ahead.

"Do you feel that?" Scott whispered, his grip tightening on Stiles' arm.

"Feel what?" Stiles asked. "There's a _lot_ of things I'm feeling right now, but most of them I'm trying _not_ to think about."

"It's like a heartbeat," Scott said in a strangely dreamy, breathless tone, his voice taking on a slight lisp. "Only ... only _not_. It's ... it's here. All around us, in the walls. Like they're alive. Can't you feel it? It's like the moon, but so much stronger. It's beautiful."

The only thing Stiles felt was exhausted and sore. The stripes Aaron had given him stung like burns, finding new ways to hurt every time he moved and his jeans chaffed his ass or Scott's arm shifted against his shoulders. He found nothing at all beautiful about their current situation. He was about to tell Scott so, when to his deep concern, he realized Scott's voice had started to lisp because his fangs and dropped. The hand gripping him for support had sprouted claws and when his friend's eyes drifted open from his moment of reverie they shone in the dimly lit passage with a bright red light.

"Whoa... Scott, your eyes. And... your claws, and, uh teeth. Let's not focus on the creepy, siren-like living walls that I can't hear, okay? Stay with me, buddy," Stiles urged. It worried him that Scott's wolf was making an appearance when Scott was so weak. That wasn't normal.

With apparent effort, Scott retracted his claws and teeth and blinked the red from his eyes, but he still seemed somewhat dazed.

Ahead of them the tunnel opened out into a massive chamber. It was so dark that the only way Stiles knew that was because the two flashlight beams ahead of them were no longer bouncing off the walls of the tunnel. Instead, they cut clear, unobstructed paths that illuminated nothing but the floor and the men holding them. The chamber must be so large that the far walls were out of reach of the light, Stiles thought as he and Scott struggled towards it. They'd fallen a good distance behind the others.

The mercenaries' pace slowed markedly as they progressed further into the open space and began to take in its enormity. Finally stopping, they turned in circles, playing the flashlights about them as they attempted to understand their surroundings.

Scott and Stiles finally caught up, proceeding cautiously into the open space. The instant they crossed the threshold, lights sprung to life on the walls. Not the pale white of the wall writings, but a ruddy, amber glow like fire light. A series of golden braziers ringed the chamber on stone ledges around ten or twelve feet off the ground. They sprang to life one after the other, the circle of illumination tracing a dramatic circle around the chamber as if to emphasize its size and grandeur.

The two boys stared as they moved farther into the room, turning about to get a better look. The light danced above the braziers in an approximation of fire, but it _wasn't_ fire, Stiles decided as he walked backward, craning his neck upward for a better look. Like so many of the chambers in this place, this room was circular in shape and the mouths of several doorways stood dotted around its wide base.

Scott slid easily away from Stiles as they both looked around. Stiles should have wondered at that. He should have wondered why Scott was suddenly moving so much better when he was in such terrible condition and had barely been able to stand a few minutes ago. Maybe he would have, in a minute, but the immense complexity of the room around them had temporarily absorbed his full attention.

He thought he'd surpassed his ability for wonder at this point, but this chamber was certainly well designed to take one's breath away. Fantastically detailed carving work covered the towering walls from floor to ceiling. Statues and masks fashioned from gold, silver and jade hung on the walls and stood on niches and platforms built into the room's opulent framework and stood like sentinels at intervals around the base of the wall and flanking the doorways. It felt like you could spend a year in here studying the walls and still not have taken in every bit of carving or art on display. It was a massive work of artistry, although honestly, Stiles couldn't really call the collective effect beautiful. The style was claustrophobically cluttered and busy to his eye, so much so it almost made him dizzy, but it was certainly _very_ impressive.

Even the ceiling above was textured with carvings, although they were all in shades of night, forming the collective impression of the night sky, complete with lighted, twinkling stars arranged in accurate constellations around a waning gibbous moon. Stiles wondered why not a more traditional full moon or crescent moon, and supposed that perhaps the representation was dynamic, realistically tracking whatever lunar calendar to which it had been tuned.

There was probably a fortune in precious metals alone in this room. Stiles thought ironically that the mercenaries had found their treasure after all, and a whole lot of good it did any of them, now.

On the floor beneath their feet, a large, complex pattern was starting to glow slowly to life, drawing Stiles' attention. The illumination spread from the outside in, revealing the design in stages. The outer edges of the pattern were ringed with triangular points, followed by layers of concentric rings filled with the same kind of complex, eye-bogglingly intricate pattern work as the walls. The large, innermost circle within the heart of the design was different. It held a single, graceful, clearly recognizable image. As they watched, a giant, glowing lotus flower appeared, sprawling across a large area in the dead center of the massive chamber.

Stiles and Scott both froze. They were about a fourth of the way into the room, still standing on the concentric pattern of outer rings just outside the arms of the lotus. Aaron and a few of the other mercenaries were now behind them while Nosek and another man were ahead, standing on the outer edges of the flower.

Stiles felt his heart jump up into his throat. He and Scott exchanged a look and quickly started back-tracking.

Aaron noticed their abrupt change in course and moved into Stiles' path. Catching him by the wrist he spun Stiles around, twisting his arm behind him in one smooth motion. "Where do you think you're going?" he demanded, intentionally grinding the boy's arm into the raw welts across his back.

Stiles gasped and stumbled forward a few steps, bending forward in a vain effort to escape the pain.

"Not trying to sneak off on your own and leave us not knowing which of these doorways to take, are you?" Aaron hissed, roughly smacking Stiles' sore rear with his free hand and driving him forward another few paces.

 _"Nnhg!"_ Stiles yelped in indignant pain, his face heating even as ice swirled sickly in his stomach. His heart lurched as he suddenly found himself standing on the very edge of the lotus circle. He dug in his heels and pushed back hard against Aaron as the man's relentless pressure on his arm threatened to drive him even further forward.

"Wait! Aaron, stop, listen to me, stop! We have to go back! We all have to go back. Listen, you wanted me to tell you when I had a bad feeling, when I thought there was danger? Well, I'm telling you, okay? We all need to get out of this room, _right now!_ "

To their credit, the mercenaries were all spooked and wary enough by now to listen to him, but it didn't matter. It was already too late.

Aaron released Stiles and took several quick steps backward. The others too started retreating, their gazes darting warily about and their rifles coming up.

Stiles straightened up and looked for Scott. Scott was several yards away, but the sight of him made Stiles freeze. His friend stood slackly immobile, oblivious to everything around him. He'd shifted again and his alpha red-eyes were glassy and distant, starring fixedly into the distance, as if seeing something the rest of them could not. To Stiles' horror, he saw Scott start walking in a slow, dream-like fashion towards the center of the room, gazing at the lotus like it was calling to him.

Stiles hurried to him and grabbed his elbow, holding him back. "Scott! What are you doing? Snap out of it!" He insisted, tugging uselessly on his friend's arm. Scott didn't react, didn't seem to even hear him.

Stiles felt the hairs raise all over his body as _something_ brushed over his senses. He looked around wildly because it had felt for a moment like someone was at his back, breathing in his ear, but no one was there.

Aaron and the others had halted in a knot a little distance away, on the outer edge of the circle near the mouth of the doorway through which they had come. They were looking uncertainly at Stiles and Scott, perhaps waiting to see what would happen, perhaps trying to figure out if Stiles was in some way playing them, since he and Scott hadn't retreated after he'd told them to. Stiles wanted to yell at them to quit being the doubting Thomas idiots in every horror movie ever, but the sensation like someone was behind him made him whirl around again, his skin prickling everywhere.

He could feel it now, something like what Scott had described in the passage. The sensation that the air around them was _alive._ His impressions obviously weren't as strong as whatever Scott was experiencing, but there was no denying that something was happening _._ He felt a strange, undefined tingling in his blood and his chest ached strangely, as if his heart were being squeezed possessively by an invisible fist.

The room trembled and for a moment Stiles thought it was the beginning of another earthquake, but it wasn't. It was something quite different.

The air started suddenly to shimmer and sparkle as it became flecked with dancing points of light scattered all over the voluminous chamber, like floating, glowing embers, or fireflies at dusk. Darkness rose from the center of the pattern on the floor like smoke. The airborne flecks of light moved inward, whirling around the darkness and coalescing into a shape vaguely like that of a woman with long limbs, cat-like ears and glowing eyes.

The figure radiated power and it seemed that even the mercenaries could feel it now. They took several stunned and wary steps backward but then stopped, as if unable to move outside the pattern of circles glowing on the floor. No one ran. No one felt _able_ to run, all of them held captive as if by a compelling, magnetic force.

As he stared at the vaguely feminine form in the center of the room, Stiles had the odd feeling that in some way, this apparition they were seeing was like the letters on the walls. They were seeing a shape that their minds could understand, because that was how the being before them wished to present itself. This was a creature of power and will, not something that would fall into the human definitions of either male or female, but this shape was how she chose to present herself to them. This was how she chose to convey to their limited sense that she was a sentient being like them ... only not like them, really. Stiles was pretty sure that whatever this being was, it was very, _very much_ not like them, in the way that a hurricane was nothing like a light spring drizzle.

There was a long, hushed moment of pause as she studied them and Stiles felt a sensation like ants crawling across his skin. There could be no wind in this enclosed chamber, but it felt like a breeze passed over him ... no, more like the breeze passed _through_ him. The strange squeeze around his heart increased, eliciting, not pain, but rather a dizzying rush of butterflies in his stomach that fluttered around and beat their wings against his ribcage.

"Much time has passed since I have had supplicants coming to beg my favor," the figure said, finally. The shadowy face had no mouth. Stiles wasn't sure whether he was hearing the voice with his ears, or inside his head. He wondered if anyone else could hear her. He was willing to bet Scott could. His friend was staring at the apparition as if entranced. That worried Stiles, a lot.

As her words sunk in, he suddenly also wondered _why_ they could understand her. If she were an original inhabitant of this place, English was almost certainly not her native language. The key had acted as a translator for them previously, but it had been lost along with Gage. All he could think was that either the lotus woman was speaking to them in concepts and letting their own minds translate, or perhaps she had looked into their minds in those seconds when she studied them, and had learned their whole language in the process. Either option was pretty impressive.

"And who are you, exactly?" Aaron asked, answering Stiles' question about whether or not everyone could hear the voice. Apparently, they could.

Stiles would have loved to know if the non-native English speakers in the group were hearing her in their own native tongues, but now really didn't seem to be the time to ask those kind of questions.

The lotus woman glanced towards Aaron, then seemed to dismiss him as if he were beneath her notice. Her attention settled back on Stiles and Scott. No, Stiles realized, not on _both_ of them. Just on _Scott_. His body started to prickle in a sense of warning.

"You are not of my kin, _pek'_ ," the spectral being said to Scott. She paused for a moment and then corrected herself. " _Wolf_ ," she tried the word out slowly, as if to judge how well it fit. Seeming to find it suitable, she continued. "You are not my kin, wolf, and yet, I feel I know you."

"Um, yeah, that happens to me all the time. Like, you're sure you've seen that guy before, maybe in the hall or at the supermarket or something, but you just can't put your finger on it," Stiles said, never having been very good at finding an appropriate segue when butting into a conversation. "Um, hi, by the way. He's Scott, I'm Stiles. And you are...?"

The being glanced at Stiles, then back at Scott, choosing to direct her answer to him instead. "Once you called me _Nikte' ha'_ , and _Bahlam,_ but I do not see these terms in you. I know not your word for me." She said it carelessly, as if names were things used for their convenience, not hers.

"I'm... pretty sure we don't have one," Stiles admitted, ignoring the fact that she was talking like he wasn't there. High school had given him plenty of practice at that. "N... Nikte? Nikte is good, very pretty." He was fairly sure he had mangled or lost part of the name. That was an experience he understood far too well, so he left the statement hanging like a question, but she didn't correct him. Nikte, as he intended to call her unless she told him otherwise, was paying Stiles marginally more attention than she'd paid Aaron, but her focus was clearly all on Scott. She acted as if they were the adults and everyone else present were children.

Based on what she'd said, Stiles was pretty sure now that Nikte was indeed pulling things out of their minds, perhaps sort of like an alpha's ability to get inside someone's head, only times about a billion.

"You have no word for me, and yet you came?" she asked Scott quietly. "I do not know if you are brave or foolish, wolf. You are _baal che_ , of the tree. You have given yourself to Yaxché... to ... _Nemeton,_ " she drew out the apparently unfamiliar word, tasting it on her tongue. She gave an expression that indicated she did not care for the flavor. She did not seem very enamored with the overall melody of their speech.

Stiles got the impression that not all concepts translated easily and she was working to integrate their ideas and names for things with those of the people she had known from long ago, the ones who built this place. Built it for _her_ , he was guessing. _Why_ was the question. Had they built this place, completely removed from their reality, as a temple... or a prison? Or both?

"You have come a long way alone on a mission that in elder days would bring you to ruin. Count yourself fortunate, little one. You bear the blessings of the sacred tree and you bring me gifts, so I will not kill you, even if you are not my kin, not ..." she paused a moment as if for another mental translation. "Jaguar," she finished. There was something slightly uncertain in her tone, not over the word itself, but over the assertion that Scott was not one of what she considered hers. It seemed as if something about Scott puzzled her. "No, not kin," she murmured speculatively. "But my magic has touched you, I think," she said, speaking mostly to herself.

"Um, thanks?" Scott said, blinking and breathing heavily, unable to look away from the figure in the center of the room. He took an unconscious step closer and Stiles grasped his arm again, holding him back. Scott shuddered and shook his head, but his eyes were immediately drawn back to Nikte like a moth to a flame. "I really appreciate that, but I'm afraid I don't ... I don't actually have anything to give you, sorry. I think there's been a misunderstanding, I wasn't looking for you. I didn't ... um, I didn't actually know you were here," he admitted.

"Yeah, we, um, we totally would have stopped at the store if we'd known," Stiles put in, his grip on Scott remaining tight. He started edging backward, pulling Scott with him. Nikte _looked_ at him and his muscles froze up, unable to move under the power of her gaze.

"You are also _baal che,"_ she said, and in his mind Stiles was suddenly standing in the woods, watching coils of vine snaking from the stump of the Nemeton to encircle his wrist and feeling a shadow stir within him. A sense of déjà-vu flooded him and his heart raced, because he'd had this dream before. He associated these feelings and those dreams with the Nogitsune, because it had latched onto him shortly after he, Scott and Allison had more or less ritually sacrificed themselves to the Nemeton. Now, under Nitke's piercing gaze, he suddenly felt sure he'd been wrong. Eclipsed by the Nogitsune's much more visible shadow, the Nemeton had quietly placed its own claim on him, wrapping around his heart just as Deaton had warned it would, just as the ancient people had tried to literally depict in their carvings and artwork. Whatever ritual the three of them had completed, some version of it had clearly been performed in Nitke's day as well, although perhaps for different reasons.

"You bear the sacred mark," Nikte continued, "but you are one-natured. You do not have a second spirit I can touch. I can gift you nothing." She turned her gaze back to Scott and Stiles slumped a little, feeling like he could breathe again. "He belongs to Yaxché," she said to Scott. "He is not a fitting gift. She will not be pleased that you have brought him to me."

Scott shook his head in bewilderment. "I didn't _bring_ him, I didn't bring _anybody._ We didn't want or mean to come here," he protested, but Nikte turned away from him, looking towards Aaron and the others with something predatory in the glint of her surreal eyes.

"Now these," she said with approval, "are _pleasing_ gifts. And you brought so many more than the paltry few required to appease me and to open the pathway into my glittering cage."

Stiles was pretty sure he was not imagining the spite in those last words. _Prison, then. Prison and temple both._

"I accept your offering, little wolf. They will give me much strength."

"I didn't ..." Scott's eyes widened as he tried to follow what was happening, realization dawning terribly. "Wait ... what?!"

* * *

The sun had only just begun its early morning climb above the horizon, but already the day's heat was starting to build as the battered old truck rattled along the dirt road, whacking errant greenery out of the way. At the wheel, Cora Hale navigated the overgrown track with an easy, familiar skill. In kakis and a tank top with a wide-brimmed hat over her dark, neat ponytail, she looked strangely at home out here in the jungle, more so than she had seemed in Beacon Hills.

Sheriff Stilinski held tightly onto the side of the open-backed vehicle, unconsciously hugging his tender ribs. Melissa McCall leaned a little closer to him, placing a worried hand on his shoulder. John quickly loosened his arm and looked up at her with a drawn, but reassuring attempt to smile. "I'm fine," he promised her quietly.

She looked as if she knew otherwise, but didn't protest. She'd argued with him all the way to the airport, after he'd checked himself out of the hospital against medical advice, but in the end there had been no stopping him. Besides, as he had pointed out, he was traveling with the best nurse in Beacon Hills, how much safer could he be? Melissa had looked like she'd wanted to smack him about then, but she understood his need to be here. They all did.

Derek, sitting on John's other side, nearest the front, shifted his own arm back a little until his elbow was casually resting against the Sheriff's forearm, surreptitiously siphoning some of his pain away as they drove.

Across from Derek, Kira and Malia bounced about on the opposite seat. Kira looked a little like she was trying not to get car sick, but Malia was obviously fascinated by the wild vastness of the jungle around them and would have been practically leaning her head out the window if this had been a car. Lydia had appropriated the passenger seat next to Cora, somehow managing to look crisp and put-together despite the humidity and the long plane ride.

Liam and Mason had wanted to come with them, but even though Derek was footing the airline bill for everyone who couldn't afford it, there was no way the two boys' parents were going to let them run off to Central America without wanting to know _why._ So, they had remained behind to sit on Sigerson and Landrow, with the help of Deputy Parrish, whenever he wasn't on duty.

The pack had tracked the scientist down to a cozy little hotel on the east side of Beacon hills. Sigerson, apparently, was no super spy and simply counted on people not knowing he was connected to anything untoward, because it had turned out to be easy enough to find him. The man had been registered under his own name at the motel, which he paid for with his credit card. Landrow had been with him when they showed up. The mercenary had put up a fight, but they'd won easily.

Extracting the information they needed hadn't been much harder. Landrow would probably have been a tough nut to crack, but Sigerson had spilled his guts as fast as he could as soon as Derek and Liam got done playing good cop / bad cop for him, which in their case had translated more like bad wolf / crazy wolf. Well... Derek was playing, Liam was... restraining himself. The kid was hurting without Scott's stabilizing influence around, but Mason was doing a good job of helping keep him grounded.

They had learned from Sigerson that the areas around these dimensional gateways emitted a constant, low level of atomic radiation that spiked dramatically during the days around a full moon. The levels weren't dangerous, but it created a pattern that could be searched for and identified. There were plenty of people monitoring and recording radiation levels around the world on a constant basis and that data was easily accessible. Of course, most of the monitoring sensors were concentrated around populated areas of the world, so less populated areas like deep jungles and strategically unimportant deserts were big blind spots. That was undoubtedly why the Ackermans and their crew had located the portal in Beach Hills, and not the one down here.

Derek wasn't entirely sure what they were going to do with Sigerson and Landrow now that they'd gotten what they needed from them. Landrow was wanted internationally, so they could eventually turn him over to the authorities. Sigerson was a less clear-cut case. Honestly, Derek didn't necessarily think he was a bad man, just a very poor judge of character, easily led astray by his own need to know and understand. Landrow hadn't been there to protect the scientist, he'd been there to keep him prisoner and make sure he continued to do as he was told. Apparently, whatever Sigerson had seen on the one time he'd gone into the cave with the others had horrified him enough that he'd tried to jump ship, only they hadn't let him.

Unless they could somehow tie him to the kidnappings, which Derek doubted, they'd probably have to eventually just let the man go with a very, very stern warning. Neither Sigerson or Landrow were going _anywhere_ until they got Scott and Stiles back, however. So, for now Liam, Mason and Parrish were in charge of guarding them and finding out who else knew about these portals, in case there were other people they needed to go talk sense into later. It was necessary, and it gave the boys something to do so they didn't feel so bad about not getting to come down here with the rest of the pack who _were_ able to get away without raising too many eyebrows.

Kira's parents were fully informed about what was going on, so her coming was not an issue. Malia had very little parental oversight to worry about. Her adoptive father and legal guardian was, sadly, too drunk and out of it most of the time to notice whether she was around or not. And Lydia ... honestly, Derek had no idea what Lydia had done, but she was very good at getting her way.

So, here they all were. Cora had picked them up at the airport as soon as they arrived and promptly whisked them away towards the jungle.

Derek hadn't been to Guatemala before. Cora's pack had been a lot further south last time he'd come down with her, but they moved around a lot. Matias, the alpha of Cora's pack was old. He'd grown up in this corner of the world many years ago and had spent his long life traveling back and forth across South and Central America, collecting local history and legends and trying to help preserve the peoples, cultures and ecosystems he loved. His pack was migratory, traveling wherever they wanted or wherever they were needed. Matias attracted pack members with no other roots or ties to hold them down. He believed in doing something worthwhile with the gifts they had been given and took in those who felt the same for however long they wanted to stay, no strings attached. It was an unusual sort of a pack, but it seemed to work for him.

Cora had kept Derek in touch with all the goings on in her life since they'd reconnected, and from her he learned that her pack frequently volunteered to work with organizations that did everything from building schools and providing clean water, to protecting important cultural sites and endangered habitats. It was an unusually transient life for a werewolf, but he could not deny that Cora seemed genuinely happy here. She had always wanted to feel like she was making a difference and she obviously enjoyed her pack and the work they did. Derek was glad.

The old truck's cab was only partially enclosed with a canvas, jeep-like frame that was open in back, allowing conversation between the occupants in the front and the back. If you didn't mind shouting a little.

"How far away is La Colina? How long until we get there?" Kira shouted up hopefully.

"At least seven hours, I'm afraid," Cora called back. "This place is way off the tourist track and the roads out here are crap."

"Why is it called _the hill_?" Lydia wanted to know, apparently familiar enough with Spanish to translate the location's name.

"Because that's what it looks like from a distance, a big, green hill." Cora explained. "The larger pyramid hasn't held up very well over the years. That's the locals' name for it. It has other names, Matias can give you more of the history when we get there."

"How did you find it?" John called up to her. Cora had related an overview of this information to Derek on the phone, but the Sheriff hadn't been present when he'd summarized it for the others.

Cora did not appear to mind repeating herself and she both related and expanded on the story, now that they the very definition of plenty of time.

"My pack was supposed to be in Belize, but there were some changes of plan. It's a long and unrelated story, but the end result was that we ended up in Malacatán instead, with some old friends of Matias'. We'd just finished up a building project there when Derek called," Cora called back as they bumped along.

"After you all sent us the information and the pictures, we split up into groups to check out different possible sites and cover as much ground as possible. Marc and I drove up to Tehuantepec, across the border in Mexico. It wasn't on your list of places to check, but Tehuantepec has a strong historical association with Jaguars and Jaguar gods," she explained. "The name means _'hill of the wild animals'_ or _'hill of the demons.'_ The actual hill that that refers to is believed to have been an important shrine in the Jaguar cult for a pretty long time. It seemed like some place worth checking out, given the heavy Jaguar influence in those pictures."

"Tehuantepec wasn't part of the Mayan empire," Lydia pointed out. "It was given that name by the Aztecs a long time later."

"Yeah, I know, but we were only a few days out from the full moon and we could get there in under a day from Malacatán. The rest of the pack already had the other reachable sites covered and it seemed like a better plan than wandering around aimlessly in the jungle holding a Geiger counter over my head like some kind of crazy old man on the beach with a metal detector," Cora said sarcastically.

"Who's _Marc_?" Derek wanted to know. "You didn't mention him before. I don't remember a Marc."

Cora flashed him a grin over her shoulder. "Claws in, big brother," she teased. "He's a new member of the pack we picked up during that long and unrelated story I mentioned. You'll meet him soon enough, he'll have joined up with the others again by the time we get there. _Anyway,_ " she continued pointedly. "We didn't get any readings in Tehuantepec, and the others also reported no luck at the sites they were checking. However, looking around and digging into related local lore in Tehuantepec eventually landed us some pointers that led us back down into Guatemala, to the area now known as La Colina. It's not a small site, it's actually pretty big, including a pyramid and a number of other related structures. It's not an unknown or unvisited location, but it's so far out in the jungle and away from any decent roads that it doesn't get the same kind of tourist traffic as the relatively more easily accessible and well known locations like Chichen Itza and Tikal.

"By that point the full moon had come and gone and according to your sources we were working against the clock if we wanted to try to pick up any potential radiation spikes without having to wait for the next one. Matias was closest, so he headed for La Colina immediately. Soon as he called me saying he got a hit, I called you. I sent Marc on to pick up that stuff on the list Deaton gave us and waited around to pick you all up when you flew in. That was a pretty bizarre and specific list, by the way, but Marc will still probably have gotten there ahead of us. The rest of the pack was planning on rendezvousing there as well, so we'll probably be last to the party," she wrapped up her story.

Cora glanced over her shoulder, giving her brother a slightly concerned look. "Derek, the ruins aren't small and the radiation spike was already fading by the time Matias found it. Last time I spoke to him he was trying to narrow down the actual the gateway location, but I haven't heard from him since. Even his SAT phone gets dodgy reception out here. I don't know what kind of luck he's had," she warned. "I hope some of the stuff Deaton had us digging up is going to help with that?"

Derek made a face, knowing that wasn't the point of the supplies in question but reluctant to say so. Cora read it in his expression anyway and sighed. "I don't suppose you've been able to dig up one of those keys you mentioned, either?"

"No," Kira answered quietly this time. "Not yet. Deaton's in Malaysia right now trying to track one down, but it's not ... it's not sounding good. He did research other possible ways to open doorways like this, though. He's told us a couple of things we can try; that's what the supplies are for," she added, trying to sound hopeful.

"Great," Cora muttered with frustration. "So we try throwing some hocus pocus at random stone walls to see if that does the trick, or we wait for the bad guys to emerge, providing they _maybe_ made it all the way through and that they still _maybe_ have Scott and Stiles with them. Glad to see the general planning process is as stellar as I remember."

"Cora," Derek said softly, glancing back towards Melissa and John. "We have to do _something._ "

Cora's expression softened. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I know. Well, hey, you were right about the radiation," she said, attempting to sound more optimistic. "And we _actually_ found the place in under a week, which I wouldn't have thought could happen either, so we're already off to a good start, right?"


	16. Losing Control

**"Losing Control"**

* * *

Nikte crossed the room faster than thought. Before anyone could react, she reached out and pressed one spectral hand to Nosek's chest, neatly plucking out the man's heart, as if with one surgical swipe of invisible claws.

"Whoa, that is some seriously Indiana Jones shit right there," Stiles' slightly strangled voice murmured at Scott's elbow.

Nikte let the body fall and pulled the dripping lump of flesh back to her. She didn't exactly eat it, but it disappeared into her mass and she seemed somehow... stronger? More solid? The lights twinkling in the darkness of her form became a little brighter and more distinct.

The mercenaries seemed frozen, literally. Aaron managed to shoot a few bullets into the dark mass of her shape, but that did about as much good as you might expect. Nikte reached for him, but Scott got there first this time, putting himself between them.

"They're not gifts!" he protested urgently. "Please, this is all a big mistake. I'm really sorry we disturbed you, and for the misunderstanding. We're just ... really lost and trying to find a way home."

There was something wild in the glowing eyes regarding him now and Scott resisted the urge to flinch, stolidly keeping himself between her and the men behind him. He shivered, not with fear, but with longing. She set all his instincts quivering, and when she looked at him in that commanding manner he felt the insane and worrisome urge to metaphorically roll over and give her his neck, give her his submission, give her his _life_. He thought it was perhaps an extreme version of what one might feel towards an alpha. It was hard for his conscious mind to be sure, he'd never had one he felt very compelled to follow, but something deep and instinctual inside him seemed to just _know_. He _wanted_ to obey her. He wanted to _please_ her. Scott fought those feelings and stayed where he was.

Around the sinewy curls of darkness that formed Nikte's body, Scott saw Stiles edge into view. Stuck on the opposite side of her from Scott, he was clearly seeking, without success, to find a way to go around her that didn't involve walking through the imposing, smoky tendrils she was trailing all over the floor. Stiles seemed to be moving okay now, although the mercenaries behind him were still frozen.

"Yes," Nikte murmured. "It _was_ a mistake, wasn't it? _Their_ mistake." Her gaze focused on Aaron and the others over Scott's shoulder. "The blood within me answers many questions. I see much more clearly now, where before was shadows and whispers. I wondered, why you were ignoring the protocol, why the sacrifices you offered were not as prescribed. I care not, you know," she added with a capricious little smile. "It is all one to me if this man be courageous or cowardly, innocent or defiled, cunning or a fool, so long as I am fed, but the priests, they had their rules, and they would never have lit the path for any whose offerings held no grief."

Scott didn't really understand what she was saying, except that she seemed to have gotten a lot more information out of directly ... uh... _absorbing_ one of them, then she had by just reading their minds. He thought too that she was saying the previous sacrifices had also been as food for her, but in some less direct and more guarded method.

"Oh! _That's_ what it meant. _'These you must have: courage, innocence and cunning',_ " Stiles' piped up suddenly, indicating that his friend had gotten a little more out of what had been said, which was pretty typical. "They weren't being metaphorical, they were being literal. You needed three sacrifices to get through, and they were each supposed to embody one of those traits. That's what was with stressing the whole choosing wisely business, it was about figuring out what order you should sacrifice them in, because if you picked the wrong one first, you'd never make it past the innocence gateway." Stiles blurted the information out as it unspooled in his brain with no regard for its relevance to the current situation, which was also pretty typical.

"You were..." Stiles' voice faltered slightly. "You were supposed to care. About the sacrifices. Reese was wrong. Not prisoners, not slaves. People you cared about," he murmured, sounding a little sick.

"You _did_ care," Nikte purred, once again speaking to Scott rather than Stiles. "I felt you. I felt the echo of your pain when I absorbed them... you woke me from the twilight of my fading slumber, little wolf, and I waited for you to come. But this lot," her gaze shifted back to the men behind Scott, wrath flaring in her nebulous face. "They are fools. I know their type and I see their minds. They came here seeking gold, seeking to _steal_ from me and spilling blood without meaning. They could have spilled an ocean and it would not have availed them," she spat, sounding scornful and indignant at both the waste and the idiotic hubris.

"They would never have been allowed passage past the gateway of fangs without a child of Yaxché and one of the two natured. Yet these _toot ta' lukum_ show no respect. They have used you and the one-natured priest badly. They have wantonly ravaged those they should be _serving_. What made them dare to be so bold?" Nikte's gaze burned into Scott, laden with confusion and angry questions. It was all Scott could do not to gasp for breath under the weight of her stare and the power of her bewildered ire.

"When last I walked the earth, such trespasses would have been unthinkable, but it seems it is so no longer," she said slowly, as if dumbfounded and deeply displeased by what she was seeing within him. "I do not understand this world you come from, wolf, it is all a jumble inside me. It seems completely upside down, this place where the weaker one natured flourish and the two natured, the children of the _gods_ must hide their glory. Tell me how this came to be?"

"Um..." Scott cleared his throat, raising his hands in a soothing gesture. Nikte was upset and he could feel it pressing down against his chest and agitating his wolf. "I'm afraid I'm not really sure, to be honest? A lot of time has passed, the world you remember was a really long time ago. Look, it is different, yes," he told her honestly. "The world has changed, I'm sure, but it's not all bad, just different."

Nikte shook her shadowy head. "You say this because you are young and you do not know. You do not know the world as it was when I was free, before they stripped me of my form and trapped me in this place that is no place at all. When my brothers and sisters lived and we ran wild with our children beneath the moon. None could stand before us, we gave our children what we would and the kings of men brought us tribute. You do not know the power and the joy of the hunt, of the kill. Not like we knew it. It has been so long since I ran with my kin, since I have felt the brush of another spirit..." There was genuine, soul deep pain and yearning in her voice.

Scott couldn't help feeling sorry for her. He couldn't help wondering just how many centuries it had been since the last pilgrims came here, and how many more before that since she last saw anything other than the inside of this room. Even if time passed more slowly in here than in the outside world, it still had to be a really, really long time.

"I will share this kill with you," Nikte promised him, something almost painfully eager in her tone. "Then you shall understand. Then you will want always to run with me, even though you are not mine."

Scott felt a terrifying leap in his chest, like his wolf was pressing at his ribs, eagerly drawn to the soft lilt of seduction in the powerful being's promise. "NO!" he said quickly, shaking his head emphatically. "No. Just... no. You don't have to do that to keep me. There's no need to kill anybody. I understand," he said softly, fixing her with an earnest gaze. "I understand you're lonely, and I'll ... I'll stay. I'll keep you company if want. You don't have to be alone, but we'll just... we'll let everybody else go, okay?"

"Scott-!" Stiles started to protest, but Scott cut him off with a hard look and an emphatic little chopping gesture that told him to shut up.

"I'll stay, if you let the rest of them all go unharmed, okay?" Scott repeated his offer.

Nikte seemed honestly baffled by his request and his actions. "They are only mortal, little wolf, and they have hurt you gravely. Your body is failing; you stand only by my grace. Their poison runs through your veins and you cannot mend the flesh they have so grievously torn."

As if to illustration of her point, Scott suddenly felt the pain that some part of his mind knew he should have been feeling all along crash back into him like a tidal wave. She was right, the wolfsbane was ravaging his painfully weak system much quicker than usual and he'd already stopped healing. His internal injuries blazed with agony and his head spun. Scott gasped, wavering and fighting to hold his feet.

"You are dying, wolf," Nikte murmured. "They have killed you. You are angry with them for all the harm they have caused you and yours, I can see this. Why would you shield them?"

Scott locked his knees, eyes flashing defiantly as refused to let the pain and the aching weakness in his muscles drop him or make him back down. "Yes," he said in a pained, forceful voice. "Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry as hell at what they did to Wilson, to Jade, to Stiles and to all those other people before us. I want them to see justice for that, I want them to pay for what they've done. I can't pretend I don't want them dead, that I don't _want_ to kill them, but just because I want it doesn't make it right. I'd rather have justice than revenge, because I've seen how that plays out too many times, and it never ends anywhere good."

"Justice..." Nikte frowned at him, rolling the sounds around at her tongue. He could tell she didn't understand his concept of that word. He felt her brush through his consciousness again like a warm wind. He felt the stir of her in his mind, trying to absorb his ideas and feelings so she could comprehend what he was saying to her. When she finally did begin to grasp his concepts of right and wrong, she seemed to find them extremely odd.

"You were not raised to know power, little one," she said after a moment with a lilt of condescension masquerading as understanding. "That is why you are weak."

"I'm not weak," Scott said firmly, his voice raw with pain and determination that gave truth to his words. "Mercy is not weakness. It's not _weak_ to do what you believe is the right thing when everything in you _wants_ to do something else. The right path is almost never the easy one, in my experience. The ability to kill doesn't make you strong. We're predators, Nikte. Killing is easy. Choosing not to, that's what takes strength. That's the harder path."

Nikte did not pass him off. She studied him for a long, long moment and Scott held her gaze unwaveringly, despite the dots and floaters dancing through his vision. Presently, she hummed low in her throat. It was a thoughtful sound. "This is an interesting idea, little one, and perhaps not without merit, but it is a human concept. You think in human terms. You think with only one nature because you have never been truly free. You do not understand even what that means. You do not trust yourself, little one and that weakens you. You reject your second spirit because you do not understand how it thinks. Human laws are not for us, child. You cannot cage the wind or make slave of the ocean. You do not know the world before mankind began to drive us out, before they killed and caged us like beasts and drove us into the shadows. You do not know, but I can show you," she said, reaching out her hands towards him. "You did not come seeking my favor, but I will give it anyway; if only to give you a short while of knowing the glory of what we once were."

"Wait!" Stiles cried in alarm, giving up on caution and rushing towards them, but there was nothing he could do to stop what was happening.

Nikte took Scott's face between her hands and the rest of the world might as well have ceased to exist. His pain disappeared and a hot, surging euphoria suffused his being. Nikte was pure, wild power. She thrummed with a savage kind of beauty, like a lioness on the hunt, both beautiful, and deadly.

Scott felt her wildness flow into him, power flooding his consciousness to an excruciatingly breathtaking degree and threatening to burn away all rational thought. His animal instincts leapt and clawed and surged, fighting to be released... and winning. It felt like his human self was being peeled away from his wolf, like tape ripping off of skin, allowing the animal to take the fore. It was a horribly familiar sensation and it _terrified_ him.

 _Kate. The temple. The helplessness. The rage. Kira._ In his mind's eye he saw again the mask descending above him as whatever dark, ancient magic Kate had pulled on to perform the ritual drove a shuddering divide between his instincts and his soul, making him into nothing but a savage puppet. Someone who would kill for her without a thought.

Scott fought. He fought hard, shoving back at the power sweeping into him with all his might. His physical body moved sluggishly, his hands grasping only weakly at Nikte's shadowy body, but in his mind he flailed wildly, trying to jam his wolf back down into the filmy, insubstantial cage in his chest with ever increasing panic.

 _"No! No, no, no! Don't do this to me! Please, don't do this!"_ he begged.

His terror surprised Nikte. This was not the reaction she expected and Scott somehow understood that through the mental connection they were sharing. Generations of the faithful and daring had come to her, seeking this gift, seeking the perfection of being freed from their mortal fetters. Never had they _fought_ it. Never had anyone _resisted_ when she tried to bless them. Seeking to understand, Nikte dug into him with relentless claws made of silk, prying through his mind until she found the images and memories that drove his fear.

 _"Hush, child,"_ she soothed, and there was suddenly something almost gentle amid all her natural fierceness. _"You have been hurt. I see now, why I felt I knew you. You have been touched by my magic, but not as it was meant to be. Lesser children and mortals have corrupted the sacred rituals of the Bahlam. They pervert our gifts and use what remains of our power to create mindless creatures of rage to do their bidding. That is not as it was meant to be and that is not what I give you, little wolf. My gift is pure. I will not bind you to my will as the little she-Jaguar tried to do. I will not even own your heart. I_ could not _own it, even if you wished to give it to me, protected as it is by Yaxché's roots. You are not my child, I cannot grant you immortality or your own full skin, but I can give you a little while to be free. To be_ wolf _in purity, without the chains of your humanity and all those feelings that pain and trouble you and keep you from what you need. You have been grievously hurt. If you feed, you will heal. Hunt with me, little one. I will let you take whichever heart you please, and it shall make you strong again."_

Nikte was, in her mind, being incredibly kind to him. She caressed his face gently, and it was clear to Scott in that moment, with that touch, how very, _very_ much she had missed hunting with her kin, how much she has missed _any_ kind of company at all. Her extreme loneliness had driven her to the point that she, a jaguar goddess, would take a wolf under her wing and be so generous with him, just because he was two natured like those she called her children. There were mighty kings who had bathed the earth with blood to gain her favor and gotten much less from her in return.

Scott whirled with internal conflict. His mind was horrified by what she was saying, but his body and his instincts thrilled all too readily to Nikte's call. His wolf instincts surged and leaped within him, desperate to run with her and to take what she offered. His wolf was hungry and hurt and desperate, aware that their body was dying. His wolf wanted to _feed._

 _No, don't! Don't!_ he tried to keep it back, tried to keep the monster in the box, but the box was dissolving and every nightmare he'd ever had was coming true. He struggled with everything he had, but it was no use. He felt control slipping away like sand through clenched fists, the more he struggled, the faster it flowed away. Nikte was drawing out his wolf, forcing the animal part of his nature to take control. No ... not _forcing_ , that was the wrong word. She was _calling_ it out, an inexorable force, like the moon only infinitely stronger. Scott didn't think he could have fought this pull even at full strength and he was nowhere _near_ full strength. His will was strong but his body was too weak, too drained to resist her.

Scott felt himself slipping, felt the wolf beneath his skin shoving _him_ back into the shadows as ruthlessly as ever he had in reverse. It wanted to run to Nikte, like a child who felt ill used on the playground. He had the weirdest, fleeting feeling like that part of himself he called his wolf, what Nikte called his second nature, was somehow angry with him fighting so hard. Like it was upset at him for trying to keep it away and for not letting it have his body. _Why should I? Look what you've done with it! I can't trust you._ Only now, he had no choice. Scott had the horrifying sensation of living his own worst nightmare. This kind of loss of control, succumbing to the darkness within him and becoming the beast, was literally the thing he feared most in the world.

"Scott? Stop it! What are you doing to him?! Scott!" Stiles' voice seemed to come from a very long way away.

Scott couldn't breathe around the horrible, helpless sensation squeezing his throat, because he realized that no, becoming the beast _wasn't_ the thing he feared most. What he'd find when he came back to himself - the people he'd hurt ... the people he'd _killed_... _that_ was what he feared. He saw again Kira's eyes when she realized it was him underneath the mask. _Her blood on his hands as he stabbed her, as he left her to die..._

 _And now Stiles was here. With him, as he became a monster. Oh God. Please, no. Please. Please. Not Stiles._

"No..." Scott whispered, desperate and lost as he felt control bleeding away, reality fading even as all his senses became sharper and hyper alert. It was like his first full moon only a million times worse. He could hear everything, smell _everything,_ especially blood. Beautiful, rich, coppery blood flowing with the essence of life and power that he needed, that his failing body _craved_. Hunger filled him, hollowing out the pit of his stomach like he hadn't eaten in years. Scott whined in his throat, a choked sob escaping around a mouthful of razor fangs. "I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't..."

Nikte kissed his forehead gently, her unseen lips like the brush like flower petals on his skin. Her eyes blazed down at him with fierce, wild light. "Let go these cares that bind you. Run with me. Be free."

Scott blinked, and when his eyes opened again, it was the wolf who looked out of them.

 _o/o_

Stiles saw the change come over Scott when Nikte kissed him. He saw the way the agonized tension fled his friend's body language, leaving behind a relaxed, predatory grace. Fear bit deep into his gut. _What had she done?_

Pleased, Nikte turned back towards Aaron and the other mercenaries. Her prey. Apparently, she didn't find hunting fish in a barrel to be sport to her liking, because the men's paralysis abruptly lifted and they ran, fleeing back up the passage amid a wild popping of terrified, useless gunfire.

Stiles also felt a sudden drop in the sluggishness he'd been battling. Unlike the others, he _had_ been able to move, but it had felt like he was doing so on a planet that's gravity was a dozen times stronger than earth. Now freed, he hurriedly stepped to Scott's side, ignoring the prickling warning bells that his friend's body language was setting off in him.

Nikte did not give chase at once. Instead she waited several patient moments, giving her prey a head start. Now, she howled, her shadow form transforming into that of a giant Jaguar and she bounded gleefully away after the fleeing men, an enormous, shadowy cat playing with its food.

Scott shuddered, tossing his head back and joining in her howl.

Stiles felt gooseflesh raise on his arms, a funny echo of wildness thrilling through his own blood in response. He got the feeling that if Scott were capable of full body shifting like that, he'd be doing it right now too. Stiles didn't remember much of the artwork from the last gallery room, he'd been too busy getting the crap beat out of him, but what he _did_ recall made him think Nikte probably had the power to grant that ability if she wanted to, which kind of made sense. Derek's recent evolution of that ability had been triggered by whatever freaky ass magic Kate had worked on him - in Mexico, in an ancient temple, with power Stiles would just bet had somehow been stolen from Nikte or others like her. He was pretty sure the ability to fully transform ran in Derek's family naturally and he'd had that potential in him all along, but it was likely whatever Kate had done had inadvertently jumpstarted the process ... all of which was terribly fascinating and completely irrelevant at the moment.

Focus had never really been his strong suit and the more stressed he was, the more his mind fractured into leaping tangents of connections and understandings that sometimes served him well and sometimes didn't. _Keep it together, Stilinski. Mind in the game. Mind in the game._ He forced his dazed, easily distracted thoughts back on track. He needed to get through this first, _then_ he could ponder all the new wrinkles that meeting Nikte put into his understanding of the world and the supernatural. You know, if he lived that long.

Scott started to move after Nikte, but Stiles grabbed both his arms from behind and held him back. "No! No, Scott, don't follower her. Come on, buddy, shake it off! Snap out of it!" he urged.

Scott whirled on him with a snarl and for the first time Stiles got a good look at his eyes. They weren't Scott's eyes. He'd seen his friend in wolf form many times, but he'd never seen his red eyes this empty. The last time he'd seen that look, his friend's eyes were still golden and he was trying to pounce him in the locker room. _Oh shit._

From somewhere down the passage came the terrified, agonized sound of screaming. Stiles' grip tightened on Scott's arm and he tried to tune it out. He wouldn't _necessarily_ have wished this fate on Aaron and the others, but neither could he bring himself to feel terribly sorry for them. It couldn't have happened to a lousier bunch of people and he certainly wasn't going to lose any sleep over it. There wasn't anything he could do to help them, and honestly, he didn't think he would have if there was. Maybe that made him a bad person, but they'd brought it all on themselves as far as he was concerned. Their fates did not much concern him, but making sure that Scott played no role in them _did_.

He couldn't let Scott kill with Nikte. He couldn't let her do that to his friend. He knew Scott didn't want it. He knew how much it would hurt him later, to have had that choice stripped away from him. Stiles knew a little about what it was like to wake up one day only to find your hands covered in blood and your stomach swimming with gut-turning memories you couldn't un-write. He would wish that on no one. Least of all Scott.

Scott's attention swiveled away from Stiles, back towards the passage when the screaming started. His body bunched and Stiles knew he was about two seconds from losing him. He couldn't forcibly restrain an out-of-control werewolf.

"Sorry, Scotty," Stiles said with a deeply unhappy grimace, and punched his elbow hard into Scott's injured mid-section.

The pain did not force his shift from him, but in Scott's current, weakened state it had the desired, momentary effect of staggering him a bit. Stiles took full advantage, grabbing his friend and literally dragging him away. Stiles knew his blow, while undeniably painful, shouldn't really have phased Scott that much, but he also knew that his friend often inflicted pain on himself as a means of maintaining control. His hope had been that Scott would be able to grab onto the foothold and use it to lever some control back, but that didn't seem like it was going to have much long term success. This was not an ordinary freak-out, Nikte had forced him into full blown _Hulk mode_ and that couldn't be good. There had to be some part of Scott that _was_ still trying to fight, though, some part of him that clutched at the sliver of a lifeline Stiles had tried to extend, because Stiles would never have been able to get away with manhandling him around like this if he _wasn't_ dazed and confused with inner conflict. The instant Scott truly wanted to be gone, he would be.

Desperate to get him further away from Nikte and find some way to restrain him before that happened, Stiles dragged Scott a little ways along the perimeter of the room, trying to figure out if there was anything he could do with one of these big, heavy looking gold statues. As they passed by the mouth of the nearest of the open doorways, the lights inside the chamber beyond came on and Stiles realized that it wasn't the mouth of a tunnel as he'd thought before, but rather the entryway to what looked remarkably like a small living area furnished with stools, benches and some kind of low, wooden bed-like things.

Scott snarled and the sudden, painful rake of claws across his arm was the only warning Stiles got that his friend had lost the fight for control. Yelping as he was yanked around and found himself staring into the face of a _very_ pissed off werewolf, Stiles did the only thing he could do. He threw himself forward and plowed into Scott, tackling him through the doorway in a last ditch effort to hang onto him. They tumbled into the room, crashing down atop one of the low wooden benches and rolling off the far side.

Pain exploded through Stiles' battered body and he gasped for breath, his hand working dazedly at the ground in some vague idea of getting purchase. The air had been knocked out of his lungs and his side burned where it had impacted the edge of the bench.

Claws added a few new scratches to the collection of throbbing awfulness on Stiles' back and he scrabbled away, rolling under the low bench and struggling out the other side. A deceptively soft _thunk_ made him look up in time to see the previously open doorway seal itself shut.

Alarmed, Stiles threw himself against the closed door, pressing and prodding at it. Nothing happened. The door had closed automatically as soon as they were inside, and suddenly the simple furniture and living-area style arrangement made sense. This wasn't a room. It was a _cell_. He could only imagine why and for what purpose prisoners might have been kept here once upon a time. Actually, he'd rather not try to imagine it.

A low growl made Stiles whirl around and edge backward, away from the door. Scott's glowing eyes tracked him in the dimly lit room. His friend's body was hunched, teeth bared and claws out in a manner that Stiles recognized very well as a precursor to attack.

Stiles swallowed, hard, his heart thumping frantically. He'd shoved Scott in here with some vague notion that he might find some way to keep him in here. Well, that had sort of worked better than expected. On the bright side, Scott wasn't going to be able to get out of here and kill any of the mercenaries. On the not so bright side, Stiles was now trapped in a 12x12 room with a hungry, pissed off werewolf who was quickly losing any last vestiges of humanity.

 _Oh. Lovely. This was going to be fun._


	17. Pack

**"Pack"**

* * *

"The readings were strongest around the central pyramid," Matias said, gesturing as he led the small group through a forest of broken stone pillars and around the far side of the pyramid in question. Matias was a short, compact man with jet black hair and twinkling eyes. His weathered features made him seem middle aged, although the truth was many, many times more than that.

The group from Beacon Hills moved through the overgrown ruins, trailed by the rest of Matias' pack. A massive, weathered pyramid covered along one side by moss and green overgrowth rose above them and all around them lay the remains of crumbling stone walls, columns and porches. It must have been a very grand place once. Nature was slowly reclaiming the old ruins, but many of the more stubborn bits were still holding out against the march of time. As Cora indicated, La Colina was not frequently visited and they currently had the whole site to themselves.

"Which is as you would expect," the old werewolf continued. "There is a great deal of damage to this face of the pyramid," he said, gesturing to the side they were passing which did indeed look a lot like a large, lumpy green hill. "But the other faces are more intact. Pyramids like this, they were meant to be climbed. Temples were usually built on the top. That is where rites and sacrifices would have been performed. I'm afraid whatever temple stood here is long gone." Matias gestured to the massive pyramid's flat-ish, lumpy top. "But up there is where the readings were the strongest. If your gateway exists, that will be where it lies. These old stones are much decayed, and the stairs are treacherous. We should take care," he added, showing them the remains of a steep, crumbling staircase running up one of the more intact sides of the pyramid.

There werewolves hovered around the human members of their party, but everyone made the climb all right. Cora's friend Marc, a lanky young man with an easy smile and a mop of dark curls, made the trip a couple of times afterwards, ferrying supplies up to them in what was either an attempt to be extremely helpful, or to avoid the way Derek kept glowering at him. Cora shot her brother a look, which was immediately mirrored by Malia. The two long-lost cousins seemed to have bonded almost freakishly fast, and Derek was decidedly outnumbered.

Soon everything else was forgotten for a while as they focused on the task at hand. Insects buzzed and hummed and the jungle rustled with life about them like a vast, green sea. The sun slipped lower and lower towards the horizon until long shadows stretched purple fingers across the empty landscape.

"Well... _this_ is getting us nowhere," Lydia said finally, unhappily nudging one of the rune marked stones around the smoldering fire with the toe of her boot. "It doesn't seem to be working. According to Deaton, the smoke should be drawn towards the outline of gateway."

They all knew that if they couldn't even get things working that far, the chances that they'd be able to make any of the rest of the procedure work were pretty much nonexistent, although they'd tried anyway.

"Maybe it needs to be done by somebody who knows magic," Malia suggested, not trying to be untactful, but succeeding anyway.

Lydia primly wiped red dust off her hands, her fingertips now stained pink. "In which case it was a colossal waste of time for Deaton to tell us how to do it and he can do it himself whenever he decides to show up," she said a bit testily. "But I rather think he would have mentioned that."

"He did say it was kind of a long shot," Kira said softly. "That this kind of opening spell wasn't really made with this kind of portal in mind."

" _What_ portal?" John pointed out with quiet, contained frustration. "I may not remember exactly what the hell happened in that cave, but unless this _magic doorway_ they opened was in the _floor_..." He gestured around them with his good arm. "I don't see anywhere you could actually _have_ a door around here, do you?" He rubbed his hand down his face. His complexion was chalky, making his fading bruises and the dark circles under his eyes stand out.

It was true. They were all thinking the same thing. Whatever structure used to be at the top of the pyramid was gone. What did that mean for their chances of success? The radiation signature suggested that there was still a viable gateway here somewhere, but _where_? Somehow, being now so close and yet still so very far away only made everything worse.

Melissa stared down her hands, folded in her lap.

"Sorry," John murmured without looking at anyone. Pushing up to his feet with a wince, he paced over to gaze out across the tops of the trees towards the sinking sun.

The sounds of the jungle changed subtly as darkness approached. The glow of lanterns in the distance from the little camp near the tree line, and the smell of cooking food wafted on the slowly cooling air.

Lydia looked out towards the sunset. "I say we try again after nightfall, when the moon is up," she suggested finally. "We know the gateways are affected by the moon, perhaps it will work better then."

Everyone accepted the suggestion because there wasn't much alternative, other than waiting for Deaton to _maybe_ find another key. They had a scheduled contact point with him in two days, but that seemed very far away and so far all news on that front had been discouraging.

"Come, there is nothing more to do here for a little while. If my nose does not deceive me, there will be dinner soon," Matias said encouragingly. "In the meantime, there are things I should show you. Perhaps it will aid you in your quest for your lost ones, perhaps not, but I believe the more we know, the better we are prepared."

No one had any objections to that assertion, so once they had navigated the climb back down to ground level, Matias took them around to the side of the large pyramid where giant, carved reliefs were set into the walls along the lower level. The carvings were much ravaged by time and the elements. Some portions were so worn away as to be almost invisible, but some yet retained outlines and form.

Matias trailed tanned, callused fingers against the worn stone. "I think I like places like this because they make me feel young," he said with a small smile. His hand came to rest on the outline of what might once have depicted a large, predatory cat. "Something you must understand, is that like their animal counterparts, were-jaguars were much more common than were-wolves in this part of the world, once. At the time this temple was built, there may have been no wolves walking this soil. There are still not so many in the grand scheme of things. There are not so many were-jaguars now either, although there are more than people suspect. Jaguars do not live in packs, they are solitary hunters. It was not always so for were-jaguars, but in these latter years they have come to more strongly imitate their namesakes.

"I have wandered far in my life and gathered many stories and legends. Cora and Derek may, perhaps have told you of this hobby of mine," he said for the benefit of the rest of the group. "A great many of these stories have to do with Jaguars, and some of them go with these carvings," he patted the wall. "These are some of many fanciful legends passed down by oral tradition in some of the more forgotten corners of this country. At least, that is all I _thought_ them to be, until you came to us, breathing life into what I previously considered myth. Now, I suspect there is truth buried in the tales, even if time and differing understandings of the world have embellished them in certain ways."

Twilight was falling in earnest, and Matias switched on his flashlight for the benefit of the non-weres in the group. He shone the beam across the stone panels and their intricate, confusing riot of images. They were similar in style to the ones in the pictures Stiles had sent, only aged by a millennia or so of elemental decay and therefore much less distinct.

"Like many of the ancient peoples, the ancient Maya believed in many gods. Some were tied to nature and events, some to animals. One of these later group were known as the Bahlam," Matias told them. "The Bahlam were a group of jaguar deities, often attributed with protecting people and communities. There were many different jaguar gods. There was the Jaguar God of Terrestrial Fire and War, and Ixchel the jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine, to name just a few. These and the others best known to history are so known because they had specific stories and attributes applied to them, making them easy to spot when they were depicted in ancient works. There are, however, many less clearly distinguishable jaguar protectors and transformers amid the ranks of the Bahlam.

"One figure that is seen many times repeated, has come to be called the _Water Lily Jaguar,_ because it is depicted with that flower growing out of its head. The white water lily, or white lotus was a sacred plant to the Maya, as its counterpart was to the Egyptians as well, actually. A lot of that probably had to do with its semi-narcotic properties," he added with a wry smile.

"The white water lily is used in many different contexts in ancient art, and no one is exactly sure why it is associated with this unknown jaguar goddess, but the Water Lily Jaguar is an interestingly contradictory figure shown as both a protector and a destroyer. In one place she is depicted as a guardian looming protectively over the visage of an ancient king and in another she dances amongst flames as a symbol of destruction. Her picture is all over this pyramid. Here, you see?" Matias pointed out several more of the large, cat-shaped figures to them, some of which were clear enough to make out the hint of spots and the stem or blossom of the flower sprouting from the being's forehead.

"As far as I am aware, there are no officially recorded stories about this particular member of the Bahlam, but I have heard different tales told in different villages over the years. Most refer to the being as a she, although a few diverge from that opinion. Almost all the stories paint her as a capricious, primeval force of nature - a granter of gifts and bringer of death. On one hand, she prevents great disasters and turns a lowly slave into a mighty warrior, on the other she slays people seeking her favor on a whim and runs wild through the countryside with her children, tearing apart and devouring any they encounter. As I said before, alternately protector and destroyer.

"The ancient gods of many cultures were often like that, a mercurial reflection of people's feelings about the fickleness of fate when survival could depend on whether or not there was enough rain and natural disasters or disease could wipe out entire cities with no warning or explanation. If these stories are _not_ just stories, however, then this Water Lily Jaguar was quite the dangerous and unpredictable character. She is said to have had the ability not only to transform humans into jaguars, but also to grant immortality and to instill in her most chosen ones a deep wildness and lack of fear, creating warriors that we now might call berserkers, although of course they would not have used that name for them."

Kira, Lydia, Malia exchanged looks when he said that and Derek's eyebrows lifted a little.

"The story I finds most relevant," Matias continued. "And the one that seems to be referenced by the artwork both here and in the pictures that you sent Cora, is about how the Water Lily Jaguar was tricked and imprisoned. The story goes that the local people had grown tired of her destructive and unpredictable ways and had struck a deal with some of the other gods to get her out of the way. It's not a particularly pretty story. They used a young child to lure her in. According to the legend, it was her child, but if we believe that this 'goddess' was in fact some type of ancient supernatural being that perhaps acted as a kind of hyper-alpha, then anyone she turned or anyone under her protection may have been considered _her children_ symbolically, so it's not clear whether it was actually her biological child or not. Whoever the person in question was, they set he or she up to be killed, and when the Water Lily Jaguar came raging in to protect the child, they sprung their trap.

"They stripped her of her skin, the story goes. They took her fangs and cast her naked into a deep pit. But her fellow gods would not suffer it that one of them should be killed by mortals, or kept like a slave in destitution. So the people built a mighty palace around her. Her children would come there to visit her, and others even from distant lands would come to pay her homage and ask her blessing. Without her fangs, she could no longer transform mortals into jaguars, but she could still grant immortality and power to those who were already her kin.

"She is often depicted surrounded by actual jaguars in various stages of savagery, so if we are to take it literally, it most likely means that if you were already a were-creature, she could increase your lifespan, turn you into a berserker and impart the ability to completely transform if you didn't already have it. Aside from the obvious allure of 'immortality', many warriors equally desired the fierceness and power she could grant them. As a result, this practice went on for quite a long time, long enough for there to be multiple stories about it, although the details within them vary greatly."

Kira hugged herself, pressing her fists into her sides as unpleasant memories brought on by the growing darkness, the ruined stonework and the story being told filtered through her. "Why would anyone _want_ that?" She asked with a small shiver of horror. "Why would anyone _choose_ to be a mindless killing machine?"

Matias looked at her, at all of them with curious, interested eyes. "That's not quite how it was," he corrected. "Even in the interestingly similar Norse legends which give us the name we use for that type of fighting, berserker warriors were not berserk _all the time._ In the strictest sense, these men were only driven by their more vicious instincts in times of battle, danger or hardship, much like any werewolf, honestly, although, it is true that their fierceness and blood lust seem to have definitely been enhanced along with their strength." Matias shrugged a little.

"You must understand that we are also speaking of a different time and a different culture. These warriors we are calling berserkers, with their heightened healing and deadly strength, they were the elite. They were in a way like today's Special Forces soldiers, but in a warrior cultures, that could mean everything in terms of respect, advancement and even survival."

"Plus there's the whole living forever thing," Cora put in dryly. "There's probably a lot of people who'd put up with some grim side-effects for that. One of the contacts I made in Tehuantepec said that the Jaguar cult is not dead, and that some even claim there are groups of immortal berserkers from that era still in existence, practicing their 'ancient religion' and 'dark arts' in the shadows." She hooked verbal air quotes around the words.

"Three guesses who Kate fell in with after she ran away from the Calaveras'," Lydia said with frown, as if thinking that explained a lot.

"Do you think ... I mean, if they're really related to that time, to what happened here ... do you think it would help to try and find them? Whoever it was that taught Kate those things?" Kira asked bravely, clearly not wanting to do any such thing, but ready to do whatever was needed.

"I think that is a darkness you should stay away from unless at very, very great need," Matias warned, a serious tone in his voice. "Magic that powerful, that old, it twists people over time. That branch of the jaguar cult of which you speak has become something you want no part of, trust me. If you once escaped their influence, you should not tempt fate a second time. Whoever they may once have been, they are shadows now; they bring only evil into this world." There was something in Matias' tone that spoke of personal experience about which he did not wish to elaborate.

"There is also no reason to believe that whoever you encountered must necessarily have once been devotees of the Water Lily Jaguar. There were many jaguar gods of that era, some said to be more powerful and attributed with similar abilities. If we are to believe that this one was a real being, it follows they might be as well. They would each have had their own followers, I imagine."

Derek studied the carvings, reaching out and placing his palm against the worn stone. "And yet, people still went through so much trouble to go and see _this one,_ " he pointed out. "If you could go to the next 'god' down the road, why make a journey of thousands of miles, risk your life and have to sacrifice people you cared about just to get a meeting with _her?_ "

Matias shook his head. "The legends do not say. But it seems that as much as she was feared by some, she was also beloved by others. She was much freer with her power than some, and her children numbered in the many thousands. In her wildness, she created multitudes of transformers and allowed them to run free without the bondage of will that many stories attribute to others. How much her children loved her and the unlikelihood of one god showing favor to the child of another all make compelling reasons for the journey. There is also the fact that although the legends are strangely silent about how or why the other jaguar gods came to fade from history, the stories of those making pilgrimage to see the Water Lily Jaguar continue on after all mention of the others falls silent. This is mere speculation on my part, but there may have come a time, when trapped in her cage, she was the only one of her kind left to seek," he postulated.

"Like a genie trapped in a lamp, granting wishes," Kira murmured, drawing a simile to their previous discussions with Deaton.

"Yes and no," Matias partially agreed. "You were best to have a care when seeking this one's favor," he tapped the image of the jaguar on the wall. "Just because you were granted audience with her, did not mean you would get what you came for. In captivity she was as capricious as ever she'd been while free. The stories say she was just as likely to kill you as to bless you, and there was always the concern that if she devoured enough of those who came to visit her, she might regain enough strength to break free of her bonds, or that the new group of berserkers she'd created, drunk on the joy of power and love for their goddess might somehow try to free her. To prevent this, they built her temple beneath the roots of a sacred tree, said to be one of the many children of Yaxché, the Mayan's _Tree of Life_ or _world tree_."

"The Nemeton," Lydia said quietly. "That's why they put the doorway there."

Matias inclined his head. "So it would seem, from what you have told me. In legend, it was the duty of the priests of Yaxché to accompany all supplicants on their pilgrimage into the underworld to see the goddess. They made sure the rules were observed and acted as guides, although it was up to the supplicants to prove themselves worthy along the way. I find it interesting that in the picture you sent, the people depicted with tree attributes were also were-jaguars. I didn't expected that, but given the fact that all the images of sacrifice seemed limited to human depictions, I suppose that perhaps it was necessary that the priests also be weres, because the goddess would consider any humans who entered her sanctuary to be prey. Perhaps these priests were in their own way honoring her as well by taking on this task, by sacrificing themselves to the tree so that they could act as the guardians of her gateway, allowing supplicants to come so that she was not completely cut off from the outside."

"Is that why there's all these heads on the floor around her over here?" Malia asked, squinting at one of the images on the far end. "Are these pilgrims she didn't like so she ate them?"

"These are actually people she's supposed to have liked quite a bit," Matias said, coming over. "This is from a different story, from before she was locked away. I mentioned she was capricious; this is one of the best illustrations of that. She could be very good to those she liked and very dangerous to those she didn't, but would often act indiscriminately towards both. This image is related to a favorite game she is said to have liked to play. Even before her captivity, many of those who flocked around her were there because they wanted things from her. Many who rendered her service did so seeking favor and reward, so she would 'test their hearts'. If someone pleased her with their gifts or service, she would offer to grant them a single wish, anything their hearts desired."

"Why do I get the feeling this is going to be a case where you should be careful what you wish for?" Cora asked skeptically.

"Because you are wise, and also a little suspicious, mija," he teased her fondly. "And you would be right. This was a knife-edged gift. If she offered you something of her choosing, something specific, it was usually safe to accept, but if she offered you a wish of your choosing, then you had better beware. If the person chose something that benefited someone else rather than themselves, she would grant them their desire, but if they chose something for themselves, she would kill them. That is what happened here." He taped the scene Malia had been studying. "These are some of her favorite children, apparently much beloved of her. They fought a mighty foe together and defended the goddess with their lives, but when she offered them their reward..." Matias shrugged. "They chose poorly."

"That's messed up." Kira shook her head. "I could _almost_ understand the point if she was using it as a way to see who was following her only because they wanted something and who was being genuine, but why go there with people you already knew were loyal?"

Matias shook his head. "I think the moral of the story was that she didn't play favorites and stuck to her own rules no matter the cost, but it was also a reinforcement of the idea that it could be just as dangerous to be her friend as to be her enemy, one of the many reasons she eventually fell out of favor. History is written by those who triumph, so I don't know how far we are to believe all the depictions of her, since she obviously had her enemies, but still, given the amount of similar tales I have heard, she is not someone _I_ would be in a great hurry to meet, myself," he confided wryly.

"If we're taking all this literally and not just as stories and fables, what does that mean for Scott and Stiles?" Melissa asked quietly, speaking up for the first time and fixing him with an intense gaze. "Are we saying this Jaguar lady is still in there, with them? If Scott and Stiles and the people who took them actually make it through this messed up pilgrimage trial to the end, what happens then? What happens when _they_ have to meet this ... whatever she is?"

None of them wanted to acknowledge the fact that Scott and Stiles might never make it that far. They hadn't heard anything further from Stiles after that one email, over a week ago. For all they knew, the boys could already be dead, but no one talked about that, as if by allowing the very possibility, they might somehow bring it to pass.

Matias shook his head. "Honestly? I have no idea. It has been a long, long time since anyone has walked that path. If the goddess still lives in the heart of her temple, who knows what state she is in after so long a confinement?"

* * *

"Okay, okay ... Scott, just breathe, buddy, okay? Let's try to take a moment here..." Stiles babbled in an attempt at being soothing, holding his hands out to the side and trying very hard to look non-threatening.

Scott leapt, crashing into him and sending him sprawling onto the floor on his back with a yelp. The werewolf's extended claws cut shallowly into his collarbone as they fell, drawing pinpricks of blood. Scott's body hovered over Stiles on hands and knees. Dark head dipping, he deliberately licked the fresh blood from the prone boy's body like it was delicious. His empty eyes burned with the hungry light of a predator as he gave a growl that was almost a moan, his teeth leaning in to press against Stiles' skin.

There was something almost mesmerizing about the sight. Stiles was very sure in that moment that Scott actually wanted to _eat_ him. That was different. Usually angry werewolves just wanted to kill him and snack time was of secondary concern. Not this time, though. Scott was clearly completely out of his head, but he wasn't all wild, unrestrained fury like the only other time Stiles had seen him like this. There was something much calmer and more deadly in his motions now. This was not a frightened, angry beast that was confused by its own existence... this was a purposeful one that knew exactly what it wanted.

"Whoa, whoa, Scott, it's okay. It's me. Stiles, remember? Stiles. No biting the Stiles... Scott! Scotty...!" The prick of fangs set him struggling to pull away. Getting his elbows under him, Stiles quickly scrabbled backwards, out from under the werewolf. The worn heels of his sneakers scuffed madly at the ground, propelling him as he scooted on his sore ass, crab-crawling away from danger more out of reactive instinct than any conscious command from his mind to his muscles.

Werewolves didn't scare him like they used to two years and a life-age ago, back when he'd been an innocent, stupid, over-eager child who understood nothing and thought that getting eaten or mauled were the worst things that could happen to you. Most of the time he was simply wary, now, rather than afraid. It was the kind of wariness one might feel towards large pit bull dogs. If you knew them or judged them to be mostly docile then what they were was unimportant, if they were unknown or intentionally bred for fighting, then more caution was warranted.

It had been a long time since he'd been afraid of Scott. He'd not even felt wary of him since way back around the first time they defeated Peter. Scott had earned his trust, of course, but on a certain level he hadn't really needed to. When it came down to it, Stiles had always trusted him. It was why he had stuck around to make sure Scott was okay instead of running for the hills after Scott had attacked him that first time in the locker room. He'd known whatever was happening wasn't his friend's fault. He'd known Scott needed his help.

Both those things were true now as well. Scott was not in his right mind. This was all Nikte's fault. She'd done this. She'd given control of Scott's body over to his wolf instincts in a way that hadn't happened since he was first turned; only Scott wasn't a confused, newbie werewolf anymore. He was an alpha, and a strong one. Despite how badly wounded he was, Stiles had no doubt when looking into those burning eyes that, right now, Scott could still have done serious damage to almost any other wolf unlucky enough to be trapped in here with him. Stiles would present no physical challenge at all.

Not that Stiles had any intention of fighting him. It was pointless, just like running. Some part of him knew that running from a predator merely made it want to chase you, and there was nowhere in here to hide or take cover.

Scott prowled after him, snarling, his intent gaze empty of reason, empty of any glimmer of _Scott._ Whatever Nikte had done, it had left only the hurting, hungry, angry wolf in control, suppressing all human reason and feelings. The lethal, almost feline sway of Scott's body as he moved made him look more cat-like than wolf-like. Like a cat stalking a cornered mouse. Scott's animal instincts mustn't see Stiles as much of a threat, or he would have taken him out quickly. No, he clearly saw him as _prey._

Stiles swallowed, his lacerated back fetching up painfully against the wall behind him. He fought down the urge to change direction, to _flee_. Instead, he stayed where he was, feeling blood trickling sluggishly along his collarbone, pooling in the hollow of his throat as Scott drew closer. It didn't matter. He couldn't escape.

His heart thundered in his chest. Stiles was afraid, but not in the way he used to be. He was not, on some level, truly afraid of dying. Ever since the Nogitsune, he had become numb to the sensation of his own mortality. He did _want_ to die, but neither did it seem like the worst thing that could happen to you. Death may not terrify him too greatly, but he _was_ afraid. He was afraid of the pain that would come before they got to the actual dying; he was a total coward but there it was: he was very much afraid of that part. More than that, though, _much more,_ he feared what would come _after_.

He feared the things he wouldn't live to see, but knew would happen. He feared his best friend coming back to himself alone, in a blood soaked room. He feared what would happen when Scott realized what he'd done. Sweet, stupidly idealistic, _I have to save everybody,_ Scott, who tried to save the bad guys, who had never taken a life, and whose greatest fear was becoming a monster like the man who'd turned him. Stiles knew what this would do to him. He knew what it felt like to carry around the memory of carving into your best friend's flesh while he pleaded with you, bone grinding and scraping under your hands as he screamed in agony and you reveled in his pain.

Scott had lived, so Stiles could deal with what he'd done. He could bury those memories and let them rot down with all the other things he didn't want to look at ... but only because Scott had lived. He wouldn't, and he dreaded the prospect of being the first person Scott killed. He didn't want Scott to have to live with that ... to be honest, he feared Scott _wouldn't_ live with it.

Stiles unconsciously closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, trying desperately to calm down. When he opened them again Scott was crouching over him, red eyes and fangs filling his vision. His hands were pressed against the wall on either side of Stiles' shoulders, claws scraping the stone. Stiles hadn't heard or sensed the movement and his body jerked in response, trembling against his will as Scott hedged him in, chest rumbling in a low, constant, threatening growl.

"Crap! You startled me," Stiles stuttered hoarsely.

Scott snarled at him. His claws moved abruptly from the wall to Stiles' chest, digging in painfully. His head dropped and Stiles felt the wiry scrape of his friend's extended, wolfy sideburns against his cheek and chin as the werewolf tried to push his head away so he could get at his throat.

Instinctive terror made Stiles' muscles clench. His body fought him, rebelling against what he was telling it to do, but Stiles' will was stronger than his fear. His breath was coming much too fast, but he gripped onto his determination with both hands. Jaw clenched, fists knotted at his sides, Stiles tipped his head back and to the side, voluntarily giving Scott his neck.

He closed his eyes as he felt the warm rush of breath and the sharp points of fangs against his skin. He wouldn't fight. He wouldn't scream. He wouldn't beg. He would just ... let it happen. It would be better that way. Lessen the trauma of the memories, maybe. Sometimes damage control was the best you could hope for. He didn't know how much of this Scott would remember later, but if he did retain any of it, Stiles wanted him to know he didn't blame him. Scott wasn't _taking_ his life, Stiles was _giving_ it to him. A small distinction, maybe, but it was the only move he had left.

"It's okay," he croaked, voice weaker and more cracked than he would have liked as claws dug into his chest and Scott's disturbingly warm tongue hungrily lapped up the blood pooling at the base of his throat, his teeth scraping Stiles' skin. Stiles shivered slightly. "It was Nikte, okay? She did this, Scott, not you. If you're in there somewhere, remember that, all right? It's not your fault."

Scott's claws sunk into him, piercing his flesh and causing blood to well up around them. He shifted his head, his hot mouth sealing around Stiles' jugular.

"Yeah, okay," Stiles murmured. "I guess maybe you need this, huh?" Acceptance drained the edge off his terror and he lifted his hand, letting it tangle in the hair at the back of Scott's head. He cradled the other boy to his neck in a gentle parody of a lover's embrace, pulling death to him with surprisingly steady fingers.

"I'm not scared," he whispered, and it wasn't really even a lie anymore. "It's okay if it's you. Just don't ... don't follow me, all right?" the words spilled from his brain without filter, tumbling rapidly from his lips as he tried to say them while there was still time and he still had a throat with which to speak.

Stiles remembered Scott not letting himself heal when he thought he'd caused Derek's death, even by accident. He remembered Scott drenched in gasoline holding a lit flare... true, he'd been at least partially under the influence of wolfsbane poisoning and the Darach, but the memories scared Stiles anyway. The knowledge that the Nogitsune had been right all along and that he was going to be responsible for ruining the very person he was literally ready to die for was devastating. _This is it._ He realized. _This is the moment when being your friend destroys him._

Tears welled in Stiles' eyes and his throat threatened to close off. "Please, promise you won't give up, Scotty. Promise you'll live and you'll find a way to get out of here. Maybe you can convince Nikte to get you out, now that she's all juiced up. She might, if she can, she seems to like you," Stiles smiled faintly despite the circumstances. "Which, you know, isn't really a surprise because everybody likes you, Scott. So promise you'll try, and you won't get all broody man-pain like Derek and you'll forgive yourself, because I can do this, Scott, but I can't ... I can't be what destroys you." His voice cracked, chest hitching. "Just don't make me be that, and it's okay." Stiles pressed his eyes shut tighter, tears spilling down his cheeks. "And ... and if my dad's still alive, you gotta take care of him, Scott. For me. You gotta."

Stiles ran out of words, not having expected to have enough time to get all those out in the first place. Scott's claws still pierced him, but the teeth around his neck had not bitten down. The werewolf held Stiles' throat in his jaws tightly, very tightly ... but his fangs had not yet broken skin.

Stiles felt Scott's body quivering slightly against him. Not trembling, but humming with a kind of uncertain tension and power. He was breathing harshly... no, Stiles realized, he was _sniffing._ Scott was inhaling, deep, and purposefully, like he was intentionally dragging in the other boy's scent.

"S-Scott?" he asked uncertainly.

 _o/o_

The wolf was in tremendous pain. When the alpha she-jaguar touched him, she had taken the poison from his body, but he was still grievously injured and his insides burned with a maddening fire that drove his desperation and his hunger. The howl of the hunting jaguar sang in his ears and his blood, calling to him, inviting him to share in the joy, in the hunt, in the food. She had awoken in him a powerful need, a craving for blood, for flesh, for the beating, pulsing essence of life that would make him whole again. He _needed._ He needed _so badly._

This one, this yappy little rabbit kept getting in his way. Poking him, prodding him, hurting him, _caging him_. He snarled at it, pinning it down and savoring the way it shuddered beneath him. It was a stupid kind of prey, his instincts suggested, lacking the sense to stay out of his way, despite the way its heart pounded with fear. The sound of that heartbeat drew the wolf, the amazing scent of blood filling his senses.

The rabbit's blood was sweet on his tongue; so very, very sweet. The wolf wanted more. He wanted _all_ of it. He wanted to taste that tender flesh and feel it part between his teeth. He wanted to rend the body beneath him apart down to its core and devour the intense, pulsing spark of life he could feel beating beneath the surface. It was strong. It was so strong and he _wanted_ it. It would make him strong. It would sate his hunger and sooth the savage pain wracking him.

The prey didn't fight. Instead it gave him its neck, offering itself for the kill. The gesture pricked at the wolf's instincts, slowing his motions even as the beautiful, savory blood burned on his tongue, making his body beg for more. The prey made sounds the wolf did not understand, but that his brain, which was not always the brain of a wolf, absorbed and stored away. The prey did not act like prey. It... _he,_ he reached out to the wolf with acceptance and affection. He gave the more dominant creature his neck and showed his belly, making himself vulnerable, offering willing submission to his alpha.

The wolf understood the gesture on a deeply instinctual level and he held back his bite, forcing down the excited, agonized, churning bloodlust that the she-jaguar had stirred in his gut as he scented the boy beneath him. He inhaled deeply, pulling the scent of the other being into his lungs and tasting it. The boy smelled of sweat and desperation, pain and tears, and of a million little body odors that formed a familiar picture in his senses. The boy smelled like _home._ He smelled like _pack._ He smelled like _Stiles._

The wolf didn't know what that word meant, but he associated the sound of it with this scent, and it felt like it meant _safe_ and _special_ and _treasured_ all tangled up into one concept. The wolf whined softly in his throat, pressing his teeth gently against the tender skin before releasing his hold. He nuzzled the boy's shoulder, bumping his jaw with his head and licking his exposed neck and ear in a gesture of recognition and affection.

The boy's scent was full of pain and the wolf carefully extracted his claws. Dipping his head to the boy's chest, he licked clean the punctures and scrapes he'd caused on the pale skin. The boy quivered and fisted uncertainly at his hair. The blood was so, so sweet in his mouth, but the wolf kept himself gentle, kept his teeth at bay as he tended his injured pack mate's wounds.

The Stiles was not food, no matter how badly his body needed and begged for flesh. The wolf knew that. This one was someone to be protected, not harmed. He was pack. The wolf knew his pack, and when his will was his own and his mind unclouded, he would _never_ harm them, no matter how severe his condition. Pack was never prey.

The other didn't understand that. The other thought that because the wolf wanted to hunt, that it would hunt anyone, that it would hurt their pack. The other didn't understand how angry the wolf was, that that lesser she-jaguar had taken over them, had made them hurt the she-fox, who belonged to them and was pack and was meant to not be hurt. The wolf was angry and tried to protect harder, to make up for the failure, but the other thought the anger was bad, that the wolf was bad. He wouldn't listen and that made the wolf grow more wild, made him sink further into the new dark that was inside them, but was not them. The dark was hungry, and it fed the wolf's hunger, but the wolf didn't trust the dark. He looked to the other to steady him, but the other thought the dark was the wolf, and rejected him.

Somewhere in the distance, the alpha she-jaguar howled again and the wolf shivered, _wanting._ He prowled to the door and pressed against it, scratching at the hard surface, whining to get out. He could not make the door move and it distressed him. He could not join the hunt. He could not feed and heal and he was so weak. The wolf was afraid.

The boy called to him in soft, soothing tones and the wolf went back to him. He nuzzled the boy, bumping him, trying to get him to understand about the door. The jaguar alpha howled again in savage delight and the wolf's body trembled. He howled back, desolate because he knew the door would not open. His eyes stung strangely. The Stiles petted him gently, comforting his trembling frame with soothing touches and reassuring sounds. He smelled like worry and sorrow, and love. He did not reject the wolf. He didn't think the wolf was evil, the wolf could tell. The Stiles trusted them. The Stiles loved them.

The wolf climbed into the boy's lap, pressing against him in search of comfort and security. The wolf was hurt, vulnerable, and afraid. The boy would protect him, as surely as he would protect the boy. He knew this. The boy would not abandon him, even though he was weak and failing and not what an alpha needed to be, even though he couldn't hunt, couldn't provide for the pack, still, the boy would stay by him.

He curled up with the boy, shuddering against him and whining softly, because he was starving and he hurt. _He_ _hurt. He hurt. So hungry. So much pain._ The boy held him close and the warm, familiar body and the warm, familiar scent was deeply comforting to the wolf. He still hurt, but it was better when the boy held him. It made him feel stronger even if he wasn't.

The wolf's body was betraying him, trying to shut down so it could tend to its many hurts. He fought it. He fought to stay alert because it wasn't safe. They were not in a safe place and he could not be weak. He could feel the strange, frightening, beautiful jaguar alpha out there brimming with power and stirring up all his senses. He could feel the _wrongness_ the _brokenness_ about the world around them. It hummed discordantly, warning the wolf of things he did not understand. The wolf could not rest, he needed to be alert, to be on guard ... but the boy soothed him and touched him and his protective scent said that it was okay, he would keep guard, he wouldn't let anyone get to the wolf while he was weak and defenseless. The wolf understood, and he trusted.

Slowly, the wolf relaxed. Slowly, he allowed his awareness to dim and his body to focus on its injuries. It was okay. He was safe with the Stiles.

 _o/o_

Stiles tensed when he felt Scott's teeth tighten on his neck, but the nip was surprisingly gentle, and then suddenly the rows of razor fangs were gone and Scott was _whining_ and _nuzzling_ at him. Scott's tongue worked against his skin, lapping at his neck and ear like a large, affectionate, human-shaped dog. _Weird_ did not _begin_ to cover the experience.

"Uh... Scott? S-Scott?" Stiles actually giggled as Scott's warm, wet tongue tickled his ear and lathed his cheek, his voice wavering around an unstable mix of emotions that had a lot to do with having seriously thought he was about to die and now wondering if he wasn't. Scott licked him again and he laughed in earnest, feeling confused, giddy and surreal. "Ah.. uh... oookay. Okay then. Wow. Um... Right..." he said uncertainly, not really sure what was happening. "Scott? Buddy? You with me here?"

Scott's dark head dropped down Stiles' chest and started licking at the fresh cuts from his claws and Stiles startled back a little, his fists tightening hesitantly in Scott's hair. "O-Ooookay," he murmured, clearing his throat and shifting. "Mm, okay, yeah, this is getting weird. Not that that's not, um, nice, because, yeah, and, like, I'm really glad we're not having Stiles for dinner right now, like _really_ glad, but, uh ... Scott? Dude?"

He'd been _pretty_ sure Scott was about to eat him before, but this licking was definitely not feeling like the _mm-mm tasty dinner_ kind. Scott's saliva stung against the fresh cuts initially, then actually started to numb them, which Stiles wasn't at all sure was normal, but then, normal had pretty much take a hike a long time ago.

Scott lifted his head towards Stiles, and his face was still fully shifted. Stiles blinked at him, surprised when he still saw nothing at all human behind his friend's red eyes. He'd thought Scott was regaining control, but that wasn't what was happening. His friend was still completely MIA. It was Scott's wolf riding the surface right now. It was his wolf that had chosen not to kill Stiles. It was the creature part of his friend that was now trying to tend his wounds in accordance with its nature.

Scott licked Stiles' blood from his lips and in a distinctly canine gesture, dipped his head and nudged Stiles' chin with his head. Stiles smiled shakily, automatically petting Scott's hair as understanding slowly dawned. "Oh, okay, yeah... I - I get it. You ... you know me," he murmured, feeling a weird little flush of awe tighten around his lungs. He scratched behind Scott's ears without really thinking about what he was doing. "I mean, like... _this_ you knows me. You recognized my scent and somehow, you know you don't want to hurt me. You ... you know we're friends ... or, well, I guess _pack_ , for you, huh?" he realized aloud.

Stiles found it a little incredible, really. He hadn't known an out of control werewolf was capable of this kind of action or restraint, but you learned something new every day, didn't you? Maybe it was due to the nature of whatever Nikte had done that set him off, or maybe it was just Scott. Somehow, it made perfect sense that wolf-Scott was capable of acting like a giant puppy dog.

Nikte howled somewhere in the distance and Stiles was momentarily very glad for the door between them, even though he doubted it would actually stop her. Scott, however, seemed to feel differently. He went to the door, scratching and pawing and whining to be let out. It should have been funny, but it wasn't, not even a little. The pain and distress in Scott's face and body language was clear. He was _desperate_ to get to Nikte and it hurt Stiles down to his bones to see him like that. He almost wished he could let _this_ Scott go hunt with her, if he hadn't known what it would do to non-wolf Scott.

"Scott, it's okay man, don't listen to her. Come on back. Scott, come," Stiles called gently. He realized he was unconsciously talking to Scott a little like he _was_ a dog, but his friend was acting so much like one it was hard not to. Stiles winced as he pressed himself more upright against the wall, trying to find the strength to get up and go over there. He didn't need to, Scott came to him when he called.

Scott worried at him, trying in canine fashion to impart his woes. _It's like he wants me to take him for a walk,_ Stiles couldn't help thinking. Nikte was still yammering off in the distance and Scott seemed unable to stand it. He howled and the sound was so raw, so very hopeless and sad that Stiles felt his chest aching with the reverberation of his alpha's sorrow. Scott was shaking, there were tears in his uncomprehending eyes and it broke Stiles' heart.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Stiles soothed, reaching out and gently running his hands through Scott's hair. He petted his friend's head and shoulders and rubbed lightly at his neck, trying to impart some kind of physical comfort that the wolf wearing Scott's skin could understand. "It's okay, Scotty. You don't need her. Everything's going to be all right."

Wolf Scott met Stiles' gaze and Stiles was surprised by the fear he saw in him. Scott was clutching his wounded stomach and his body still shaking. The wolf knew, Stiles realized. The wolf knew it was hurt. It was trapped and confused and in pain. It was a thing of instinct and immediacy, only knowing the _now._ It didn't have human Scott's ability to process and deal with situations logically. It just _felt,_ and right now everything it felt was bad.

"Hey... it's okay. I won't let anything happen to you, buddy," Stiles promised softly, hoping with all his heart that he could keep that promise.

As if the wolf understood him, Scott suddenly pushed forward into Stiles' lap, curling his side against Stiles' chest and tucking his head against his shoulder. Stiles curled his arms around him without hesitation, holding his shaking friend tightly.

"It's okay, it's okay, Scott. I'm here," he promised. "I'm here. You'll be okay."

Scott whined softly and licked at the side of his neck again, alternately nuzzling and licking and rocking against him in small little motions that slowly grew less agitatedly desperate the longer Stiles petted his back and spoke gently to him.

Stiles' skin was getting wet from all the saliva, but he was cool with that. It barely even felt weird anymore. He knew that despite how sweet the wolf was being with him, Wolf Scott was more than just a cuddly puppy. He was whining in soft distress because he wanted to go hunt. He wanted to go kill and eat people, like Nikte. Strangely, Stiles was okay with that too. He didn't want that to happen for Human Scott's sake, but he felt no reproach towards Wolf Scott for what his instincts dictated. Scott could have come to him with the blood of a fresh kill all over him, and Stiles would still have pulled him into his arms and told him everything would be all right. There was really nothing Scott could do that would push him away at this point. No road he would not travel with him.

Scott snuffled as he settled his head on his shoulder and Stiles rested his cheek against his friend's forehead, feeling weirdly content. Granted, this was all a little odd, but there was also something strangely compelling about the open honestly of Scott's wolf behavior. Scott was as blitzed out as he could ever possibly be, and yet even so, even with nothing but raw animal instinct and reason driving him ... Scott had looked at Stiles, and he had known him. He didn't just not want to kill Stiles, he was _drawn_ to him. He went to him for comfort, for protection when everything was pain and nothing made sense and that ... honestly, Stiles could not really put into words how incredibly precious that was to him.

The Nogitsune had been wrong. Stiles did _not_ only bring pain and chaos. As Scott burrowed against him, _needing_ to be near him, slowly calming under his touch, Stiles knew that sometimes ... sometimes he could bring good things, too.

What he was seeing here was not Scott being corrupted and destroyed by their friendship. This was Scott being able to be strong and retain the true, essential inner spark of himself even when he was only raw instinct and need, because of their friendship. This was Scott being able to weather a storm that could otherwise have destroyed him, because he cared so much ... about Stiles. Their friendship had done that. _Stiles_ done that. Yes, it was really all down to Scott's awesomeness, of course, but ... but _still_. It was such a strange and lovely relief to feel for the first time in a long time like he had some kind of value. Like he had something to give, and that caring about him did something _good_ for somebody somewhere. It felt like a distorted lens he hadn't realized had been placed over his eyes was suddenly, silently starting to slide away from his inner vision.

They stayed curled together like that on the floor, propped against the wall for some time. Slowly, Scott relaxed, his red eyes drifting shut and his body loosening in Stiles' arms. Stiles noticed that the ugly, sprawling lines of the wolfsbane poison had disappeared from his arm and the bullet graze was actually starting to mend a little, which meant Scott was probably slowly healing elsewhere as well. At least whatever Nikte had done to him seemed to have dealt with the poison. That was good.

A tremor rocked the ground beneath him, starting slow and then growing to a more insistent rumble. He thought it might be Nikte at first, but quickly realized it was only an earthquake. _Ha. Funny how it's become "only" an earthquake now._ Scott did not stir.

The tremor passed, but a short while later another, stronger one struck. Dust sifted down from overhead and with a groan, several chunks of the far end of the ceiling came loose and crashed to the ground.

Scott remained unconscious to his surroundings. Stiles held his friend a little tighter, but made no other move to stir from his place by the wall. It didn't matter. Death would come for them wherever they were soon. _How much longer before this whole place just fell apart around them_ , he wondered? _What it would it be like to literally fall into nothingness? Would it even really **be** death, or some strange kind of awful limbo? _ Stiles didn't know and found that in all honesty he didn't really care that much either. He felt as if he were drifting somewhere in a peacefully exhausted haze where only he and Scott existed, and he felt strangely unafraid.

Stiles rubbed Scott's scalp with his fingertips as he cradled his heavy head to his shoulder. "How'd it go, Scott?" he murmured as the world shook around them. "You and me at the end of all things?" He smiled faintly, letting his eyes drift shut. "I mean, this was pretty epic, right? Too bad there's no eagles in our story, or an R2-D2. You know, whatever handy, moderately plausible last-minute save method rocks your boat."

A few feet away, the door slid open, revealing Nikte's towering, jaguar form. Her eyes burned with wild delight and un-sated hunger.

 _"Of course,"_ Stiles thought sardonically, his heart catching slightly in his chest. _"Because why should we be allowed to die in peace when we could still be mystical Mayan Jaguar kibble? That would just be a waste."_


	18. Breaking the Seal

**"Breaking the Seal"**

* * *

Nikte stalked through the doorway, hunching to fit even though the entry was not small. Her form seemed much more solid and more clearly jaguar than before, even though Stiles assumed she was still fundamentally incorporeal. Where before Nikte been a billowy, shifting shadow, now she was a crisper and more clearly defined shape and she wore an elaborate headdress crowned with pointy lotus flowers that almost seemed to be growing out of her head.

Nikte was dripping blood, not from her open, shadowy jaws, but from the soles of her ghostly feet. She was leaving a gory trail of footprints in her wake as if she had consumed so much, so rapidly, that her incorporeal body was unable to fully absorb it all. Even so, the hunger in her eyes was bright, wild and un-sated, the thrill of the kill humming visibly through her powerful frame. She looked as if she could consume the world.

Stiles knew in his gut that she'd already devoured everyone else, and now she'd come for him. He was the only human left.

"There you are, little one. Not hiding from me, are you?" she purred at him, her voice stronger and more mocking than before. Nikte had been very, very weak when they met her, Stiles realized numbly. She had been starved from centuries of being trapped here alone. Now, she had just gorged. She was high on blood and jonesing for another fix.

Her gaze flicked to Scott before refocusing on Stiles with unnerving intensity. "Have you put the wolf to sleep, little priest of the tree? You shall not do so to me, I'm afraid. Your flame is bright, but you are not a match for one such as I. It is a pity I cannot drink your spark from around Yaxché's roots and make your power truly mine, but your blood will still taste sweet. Yaxché will have to forgive me for not sparing her child, but then, her sapling's power has weakened, and it has been so very long since she thought of me, trapped here beneath her roots, has it not? I see in the wolf's mind that mortals have tried to destroy her, as you try to destroy us all. I begrudge no hunter their prey, but I abhor incompetence. You maim your prey like a bungling beast, leaving it to suffer slowly, for ages and ages. I am not so cruel, little one. I may have ... played, with the others and taken my time and my pleasure with them, but for Yaxché's sake, I will end you quickly."

There was a wicked glint in her glowing eyes. She stalked languidly towards him, and now Stiles _was_ afraid. She terrified him in a way that the thought of peacefully falling into oblivion did not. He was also getting really sick of running into ancient, bloodthirsty creatures that had been kept imprisoned using the Nemeton's power. _"What, does_ _ **everybody**_ _look at that thing and just think: "Oh, handy place to stash my super villains" or something?"_ He thought a bit manically, fighting his rising panic.

Stiles didn't realize Scott had woken until suddenly his friend was up, crouching protectively over Stiles' legs and putting himself between Stiles and Nikte. Scott was still wolfed out and his lips were drawn back from his fangs in a protective snarl. He glared at Nikte, growling low in his throat in clear warning that she would have to fight him before getting to Stiles.

Nikte looked more amused than worried. Her eyes flashed and she bent her will on Scott, staring him down. Stiles recognized the look of an alpha telling someone lower on the food chain to back the hell up a pace. He'd seen Scott and Derek both pull it at different times and it generally got good results. Nikte was an alpha to the nth degree and she knew it. Clearly, she intending to make Scott bow to her wishes by dint of being the most dominant predator in the room.

That didn't happen. Scott refused to be cowed. He would not back down. He merely growled louder, his shoulders hunching and back stretching in a more threatening posture. He held her gaze, steady and unblinking, challenge etched in every line of his features. Nikte may be able to bring forth his wolf, but true to her word she had not bound his will and short of that, no amount of intimidation was going to control him. His wolf refused to bow to the instinct to defer to her. He would not submit and he made that clear, settling himself firmly in front of Stiles in a manner that plainly stated he was off limits.

The ground continued to rumble and shake beneath them in little fits and starts, but neither Scott nor Nikte appeared to be paying it any mind.

Nikte seemed surprised when her attempt to subdue him failed. She gave a small, not very pleasant smile. "Ah, I see. This one is yours, is he? You claim him, even though you have not granted him a second nature. Well, yours he may be, but you shall still give him to me, child. Stand not in the way of your mistress."

Scott growled louder, the sound sharp and scornful, clearly indicating that she was no ruler over him and he did not acknowledge her as such.

"You _challenge me_ , little alpha? You think you can win against me?" Nikte was not exactly angry so much as amused and incredulous.

"No," Scott's voice was rough and guttural, but definitely his own. Stiles was startled to hear him and to realize that Scott's reason and human brain function must be returning to him, even though it wasn't changing a single thing about his behavior. It was kind of like Wolf Scott and Human Scott were working together, and _damn_ , but were they _intense._

"No, I don't think I'll win," Scott growled at Nikte. "But Stiles _is_ mine, and I will _never_ give him away. You will have to kill me first, and I don't intend to make that easy," he promised.

"No," Nikte said, considering him anew. "I believe you will not. You have the sacred fire inside you, child. The true light of the gods burns in your breast, even if you speak like a _fool_."

"Well, _you_ speak like a liar," Scott retorted. "You promised me I could have any heart I chose. I choose him. Are you going to go back on your word?"

Nikte paused, drawn up short at this. "Very well," she said archly after a moment. "Then kill him. Take your fill, and do it quickly before my hunger makes me forget my generosity."

The ground lurched violently and an even larger section of the ceiling shook loose. There was a great crashing sound from somewhere in the distance. The walls trembled and it became instantly clear that the room was not going to survive much longer. Momentarily diverted from their confrontation with Nikte, Scott and Stiles both pushed to their feet, scrambling out of the cell and back into the main chamber just in time to avoid being crushed as the rest of the little chamber tumbled in on itself. They ran towards the center of the room before finally halting, having nowhere else to go.

Nikte did not retreat with them, not _exactly_. Instead, she simply melted away and then reappeared beside them once more in the outer chamber. Large chunks of ceiling littered the intricately carved floor here as well, but the trembling floor gave only one more lurch before stilling again. If Nikte was concerned, she did not show it. She prowled in a tight around Scott and Stiles, and Scott rotated warily, tracking her.

"No," Scott refused in response to her previous ultimatum. "Stiles is not _food_ to me. He is _so_ much more than that. If his heart is mine, then I can do with it what I want, and I want it to keep beating," he said fiercely. "Are you really so _weak_ , that you don't have enough control to honor your word, even _after_ you've already eaten everything else in reach?"

Nikte looked taken aback. She snarled at Scott, showing sharp, if translucent fangs. "If that is what you choose, then very well. I will not take back my gift. The boy's heart is yours in whatever form you wish," she growled.

"The _boy_ is standing right here, and not a piece of meat, thanks," Stiles interjected.

Nikte ignored him. "I will not go back on my word," she said, her eyes still boring into Scott. "But you will not speak to me of _weakness_ nor cast dispersion on my right to feed," she snarled. "You have _no idea_ how much strength it has taken to survive alone in this pit for these long, merciless, unending centuries. You felt the hunger of a _day_ , of a _short moment_ , wolf. I have been starving for _millennia._ Can you even _imagine_ what that feels like?" she demanded, and Stiles could see from the flicker of sympathy and horror that crossed his friend's features that Scott might at least have an idea.

"Even before they forgot me and left me here to wither away inch by painful inch, they would not give me my fill," Nikte continued to rage, her eyes flashing. "Never since I was put in this hole have they allowed me to feed more than a _little_ , for fear that I should grow strong enough to escape and have my revenge on them. But now..." Nikte gave a fierce, lethal grin. " _Now_ , for the first time in an age, I have truly fed. I can feel my strength returning. Yaxché's damaged sapling is too weak now to hold me, too mangled by mortals to maintain the seal. This prison they built for me is crumbling even as we speak. The fools who came hunting treasure and found death were careless. They carved a crack in the wards when they destroyed the entryway and the crack has been growing and growing. The wards are snapping now, one after the other. They fall like a house of sticks before a great wind."

Nikte seemed on a roll, spurred on perhaps by simply finally having someone to hear her. She looked over towards the giant, glowing lotus design on the floor not far from where they stood, inclining her head towards it. "Once the last seal is broken, I will be free to leave this place. I will be free to wear flesh, to taste blood with my own mouth and hunt once more beneath the moon." Her voice had taken on a tone of wild delight.

Scott and Stiles exchanged looks. Stiles could see that his friend shared his opinion of what a wildly bad idea that was. The thought of Nikte running loose on their side of reality sounded like a recipe for utter disaster.

 _Hey, maybe we went and brought about that end of the world thing after all. Now_ _ **there's**_ _a lovely thought. Not like we'll be there to see it, though._

"Don't suppose we could convince you to let us hitch a ride?" Stiles asked. Nikte glared at him like she still hadn't entirely forgiven him for still being alive and he raised his hands innocently. "Okay, I take that as a no. But, see, when this place falls apart, you know, like you just said it was doing, I'm kind of wondering where that leaves _us?_ " He gestured between he and Scott.

"Dead, I should think," Nikte said in a tone that indicated that was no concern of hers. "Unless you are strong enough to shed your skin and find your way to the underworld where my brother is king ... but I think not."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Stiles said dryly.

"But you _can_ shed your skin, Nikte. You already have, right? Maybe you should go visit your brother instead of going back to earth when you get free," Scott said slowly, giving Nikte a thoughtful look. "You said you didn't like what you saw in my mind about our world, and I think you're right. You really won't like way things are there now. It won't be like you remember. Your people aren't there anymore and you won't be able to run free. There are people who will try to stop you. They will hunt you and either kill you or find a way to trap you again. I don't ... I don't want that to happen. You shouldn't have to be alone anymore," he said quietly.

"I knows you're very powerful," Scott added quickly when Nikte cast him a slightly scornful look. "I know that. You won't make it easy for them, but they _will_ find a way. There were once a lot of your kind, right? Well, look into my mind. Tell me if you see any trace of any of them. I never even _heard_ of anyone like you until we got down here. I don't know what happened, Nikte, but they're all gone. They've _been_ gone for a really long time. There has to be a reason for that. Maybe they're dead or maybe they all retreated somewhere else. I don't know. I _do_ know that if you go back to earth, you'll be almost as alone there as you've been here. There won't be anyone who remembers, who _understands_ you. Weres are still around, sure, and maybe some of your magic, but if others like you still exist anywhere, they're in even deeper hiding than most of us weres are. You don't want to live like that. That's no life for someone like you. You'd hate it." Scott shook his head earnestly.

"Maybe the rest of your kind have gone to that underworld place of your brother's?" he suggested. "It's worth trying, right? I mean, well, your brother's there for sure, right? And all his people, I assume, and it makes sense that others would have gone there if they needed to get away. Imagine how shocked they'd be to see you again after all this time. That would be worth seeing, wouldn't it?"

"Wouldn't it though!" Stiles agreed, picturing the weird reunion in his mind. "Bet you could scare the crap out of some of them."

"And some of them would deserve it," Nikte mused thoughtfully, eyeing the two boys warily but with contemplation. She was obviously considering the idea.

Stiles had to admire Scott's ability to be persuasive simply by sheer dint of earnest intentions. Sure, they had a lot of reason to want Nikte to _not_ go running wild around on their side of reality if it could be helped, but Scott wasn't being deceptive or intentionally manipulative in his suggestion to her. He was trying to find a solution that worked for everybody. He believed everything he said and he honestly wanted Nikte to go where he thought she'd be happiest.

Stiles thought that Nikte with her super Jedi mind skills could probably read the honesty in him, and it was that alone that gave her pause and made her actually consider what he was saying.

All the werewolf stuff aside, that was Scott's real super power, Stiles thought. Genuine care for people, whether they'd earned it or not. People responded to that, there was no denying it. Of course, Scott's strength was also his weakness. He trusted too easily. That made people trust him in return, but it would also get him killed one day. Only, it wouldn't, because Stiles wouldn't let it. He could be suspicious enough for both of them. It worked out, really.

The ground started shaking again, another earthquake rocking the failing dimension and bringing even more of the large chamber down around them. Heavy gold statues topped from their pedestals and some the faux fire braziers followed suit, their lights winking out. Chunks of decorative carving sheared off the walls and smashed onto the stone floor.

Scott and Stiles tried to take cover ... only there wasn't actually any cover. There was nowhere left to go or to hide. Nikte still seemed unconcerned by the destruction, but all then that changed, abruptly. Without warning, the giant Jaguar fell onto her side on the floor, yowling in pain as if she had been struck by some falling object.

Stiles just stared at her for a moment, nonplussed. Nikte didn't have a physical body, so he didn't understand what was happening. He was pretty sure that she was only solid when she wanted to be and any of the stuff falling around them should just pass harmlessly right through her shadow form. Yet there she was, on the ground, yowling and gasping as if impaled by something they could not see. Blood, probably not her own, started spreading out around her in a pool. The lights sparkling along the edges of her shape dimmed and her form started to lose contrast.

Stiles realized with a sudden, confused jolt that somehow, for some reason, Nikte was actually _dying._

He and Scott looked around, trying to figure out what was going on, and then they saw it. One of the massive chunks of falling ceiling had struck the dead center of the glowing lotus on the floor. The sharp end of the fragment had hit with such force that it had buried itself into the floor, cracking the lotus pattern almost in half. Dark tendrils and desperately popping little sparks of light were leaking up from around the damage like blood seeping from a wound.

Stiles didn't understand how it all worked, but he was willing to bet anything that Nikte was somehow bound to the lotus or water lily or whatever on the floor. It was probably what bound her here, in _this_ room and why she hadn't ventured out to meet them any earlier.

Scott too seemed to have ascertained the source of the problem and he ran over to the crack, dodging more bits of falling ceiling as everything continued to shake and tremble. Grabbing hold of the enormous slab of jagged stone, he pressed with his shoulder, throwing his weight against it in an effort to pry it out of the gash in the floor. The obstruction was large and heavy, and Scott was still seriously weakened. He got it to budge, but couldn't pull it loose. Nikte continued to wail piteously.

"Stop! Scott, stop!" Stiles ran over to join him, waving his hands. "I don't think that's a good idea," he said breathlessly, nodding at Scott's efforts to remove the object hurting Nikte. His gaze shifted to the shadow and sparks oozing and bubbling around the crack. "You don't remove a knife from a stab wound, right? The person could bleed out."

"Then what do we do?" Scott asked, looking urgently worried. "She's dying, Stiles!"

 _"And that's a_ _ **bad**_ _thing?"_ Stiles thought, but he saw the look in Scott's eyes and didn't say it aloud. "Okay, okay, um..." Stiles looks around, searching for a solution since trying to bandage a crack in the floor in the middle of an earthquake seemed pretty useless. His eyes darted around the room, then his face lighted with spark of an idea.

"The circle!" he said, pointing at the intricate circle pattern that ran all around the outside edge of the damaged flower. "I thought earlier when Nikte talked about waiting for the last seal to break, that she meant the Lotus was the seal, but if _she's_ tied to the Lotus, then the seal must be the circle around the outside. I mean, it literally has the flower all boxed in and surrounded, right? If we can hurry up the breaking of the circle, then it will release her from the lotus and it won't matter anymore if it's getting broken ... at least, I think so."

"Okay, let's do it. How do we break it?" Scott asked.

"Not sure, but maybe damaging it might do the trick? Like, maybe if we can draw a great big gash through the design? Like smudging out a mountain ash circle?" he suggested.

Scott easily agreed that it was worth a try. Using some of the many smaller, jagged blades of stone that littered the ground by now, both boys attacked the floor, slashing and hacking at the circular design like crazy people with stone-age tools.

Stiles grimaced as he bashed and scraped at the tough, ancient surface. The scraping impact jarred up his arms and the sharp edges of the rock he was using dug into his hands. The exertion was painful on his sore body. Perspiration trickled into his eyes and stung in his many cuts and welts. He was sure Scott wasn't feeling any better, even if he did seem to have finally been able to heal a little while he was resting. Gritting his teeth, Stiles kept hacking away, chipping through the lines one after another. _So... they were really doing this. They were trying to save the monster, while the world imploded around them. Because that was what they did. Yuuup. This was how they rolled. Totally on par for their lives to date._

He and Scott kept working doggedly, having to duck and dodge and crawl about on their knees when they could no longer stand as the room continued shaking and falling in around them. Everything was coming down now, the opulent chamber rushing to ruin amid the hideous, grinding crash of tumbling statues and smashing stones. The end had caught up with them at last. Stiles felt sure that Nikte's chamber would be the last thing to crumble, so the serious damage happening here meant that that the rest of this dimensional construct had most likely already folded in and collapsed behind them. This place was in its death throes.

Finally, they reach the outer edge of the circle, gouging though the last few inches of the pattern and completing the long, messy line they'd scratched and chipped from the inner edge of the lotus all the way out here to the wall.

Hands bruised and bleeding, Stiles gripped Scott's arm for support as they straightened up to survey their handiwork. They'd just made it to their feet, when, with a terrific rending and crashing, the rest of the ceiling finally broke free, the walls toppled inward and the whole room came crashing down.


	19. Home

**"Home"**

* * *

Stiles clenched his eyes and hunched, instinctively ducked as the ceiling came down and covering his head with his arm in a useless gesture that would do nothing to ward off the hurtling tons of stone. He fully expected to be squished like a bug, so it took him a few long moments after the initial crash to register the fact that he wasn't actually dead, yet.

Blinking, he straightened to find himself suspended in the midst of a confusing, swirling darkness. He was standing, but not standing, it was more like floating, even though he had the impression of the ground still beneath his feet. It was a very strange sensation. _Was he was dead after all?_

Stiles looked around and found that Scott was still beside him, standing a few yards away and looking equally surprised and confused.

At first Stiles couldn't make sense of what he was seeing in the strange twilight around them, but then he realized that the hulking shapes his mind was having trouble processing were the strangely transposed outlines of a huge mound of rubble. His brain couldn't figure it out, because he was looking at it from a perspective he shouldn't have been able to see it from. He was looking out through the center of the mass, as if he were standing in the middle of it with tons of stone and debris around him, on top of him and passing _through_ him. It was like he'd been buried ... only somehow he wasn't.

He felt a hum vibrate around him and the sensation of a phantom pulse echoing in his chest, like the air of the strange space was charged with a living presence, and suddenly he realized what had happened.

 _Holy crap!_ He and Scott were _inside_ of Nikte. For a second, he thought she'd eaten them, but then he realized that no, she was _holding_ them. Somehow, she was holding them within the incorporeal space that she occupied, floating untouched amid the destruction of the chamber in which they had been standing. Stiles did not understand how this worked at all, but thought it seemed a little as if her spectral form behaved like yet another dimensional space all its own, one that was not entirely in phase with the plane around them and therefore was not entirely bound to its physics. Honestly, the whole thing was more than a little mind-boggling and he gave up trying to figure it out. It made his head hurt. The only thing he could tell for sure was that she must have pounced on top of he and Scott just as roof fell in. If she hadn't, they'd be dead.

"Hey, I guess it worked," Stiles said to Scott, noting that Nikte didn't appear to be injured or trapped anymore. His voice sounded funny in his ears, like he was speaking underwater.

Scott nodded. "Are you okay?" he asked Nikte, craning his neck around in an effort to figure out where he was supposed to be looking to address her. "Are you free now?"

"I am," her voice came from all around them and yet from nowhere, and again, Stiles felt sure they were really only hearing it in their heads. "This place that has been my prison so long is dissolving. It will soon be nothing. I must leave now, before it is gone."

The darkness in which they hung suddenly became thicker and more opaque somehow. Stiles could still see Scott across from him, but it felt as if he were far away. He saw Scott's lips move, but heard no sound, as if a wall of silence had descended between them. Stiles frowned, unsure what was happening. "Scott?" he tried, but got no response.

The room shook in its final shudders of agony and all around them he saw large rifts of black nothingness open up like hungry mouths. The voids began devouring the rubble, leaving behind broad, spreading patches of frightening, teeming emptiness. Stiles' heart lurched and he looked away. He looked away from the void but couldn't escape it because it was growing all around them now. It would reach them soon. He tried not to shiver. Then something brushed across his skin and he did shiver. He felt the phantom sensation of pressure and movement, as if Nikte were coiling her large, feline shape tightly around him and reaching her fingers into his body and his mind.

He heard her voice inside his head, speaking just to him. He felt as if he were looking into her glowing eyes, although physically he had no idea how that would have worked.

"You freed me, little priest, so before I go, I will give you a gift," she purred through his mind, her voice warm and silky. "I will grant you a wish. Just one," she warned. "Only one wish, for only one person, but you may ask me for anything that is in my power to grant, _anything_ ," she murmured, her voice tingling through him like a drug, making his head whirl in a not unpleasant manner. "So tell me, _baal che_ ," she hummed. "What do you want most?"

Stiles swallowed, his heart leaping in a sudden sense of hope at the flicker of light at the end of what had been a very long, very dark tunnel. It was all well and fine to offer him anything, but this was a no-brainer. What he wanted most was to get the hell out of here and go home. That was it, that was all his heart cried for. Just _home._ For the briefest of moments he imagined it, imagined seeing his house and even his school and - and just _sun_ and _trees_ and _people_ and his friends and - and his _dad_. A desperate, aching longing tightened his chest, mixed with a dizzying euphoria of hope. He felt like a drowning man, craving oxygen who had caught the promising glimmer of sunlight sparkling on the underside of the surface, just over his head. _He wanted to go home. He was going home..._ but then, suddenly, the full meaning of Nikte's words caught up with him and everything stopped.

 _One wish. Good for one person._

Stiles pressed his eyes shut, his euphoria crashing as the surface slipped away from him again. Opening his eyes, he stared across at Scott, who seemed oblivious of what was being said between he and Nikte as he hung a few feet and a million miles away. Stiles looked at his friend, and he knew. He couldn't ask her to get them both out of here. He knew that's what she meant and why she'd been so specific in her wording. Nikte had to know that getting out of here was the only real thing that mattered to either of them right now. He understood what she was really saying to him.

There was one ticket out of here. Just one. Why she would offer him the choice and not Scott he wasn't sure. Maybe she was still pissed at Scott for standing up to her about him and this was her warped idea of payback, or maybe she had other plans for Scott. Stiles didn't like that idea at all, because there was no way they could be good.

Stiles' gaze locked on Scott, as if he could memorize every last thing about him in a heartbeat's space of time, as if he could hold onto that last bit of home and take it with him into the darkness. Because of course, there was really no choice at all to be made here. There was no question about what he _really_ wanted most in the world. The last fragments of the room were vanishing around them now, darkness drawing in like the end of days and the start of all his nightmares.

"Scott," he said firmly, without a trace of hesitation or regret. "Get Scott out of here. Send him home, safe."

o/o

Scott floated in the strange, humming darkness of Nikte's embrace. Something had gone weird with his ears when the room started disintegrating. He could see Stiles' mouth moving, but there wasn't any sound. He tried to walk or even swim towards his friend, but he couldn't move.

Nikte's consciousness surrounded him, beautiful and oppressive, both liberating and smothering at the same time. He felt like she was looking at him, looking into him. His wolf pressed lightly against his ribs. He was still drawn to her but was also wary now, because she'd tried to take Stiles from them and Scott's wolf did not forgive as easily as the rest of him did.

His animal instincts were agitated by everything that was happening, his wolf humming with alarm at being held helpless inside the larger alpha, despite Scott's logical mind knowing it was in fact the only thing keeping them alive. _It's okay, we've got this,_ he soothed, and for once the wolf in his blood trusted him and settled obediently.

"There is new harmony in you, little wolf," Nikte murmured to him with the impression of something like amusement. "You may not have made use of my gift in the manner I expected, but even if you would not hunt with me, I think some things you begin to understand."

Scott frowned because he realized with a start that she was right, in a way. So much had happened so quickly since he'd awoken just now, that he hadn't consciously had time to realize how easily in sync he had felt with his wolf instincts since then. It was like they suddenly weren't fighting him and insisting that he do things their way as much ... or maybe it was him who wasn't fighting them so hard. He'd thought just now that his instincts were trusting him more easily, but maybe that's because he was finally allowing himself to trust _them_ a little. They had protected what he cared about, even without him around. Even raw and wild, his instincts, his 'wolf' if you wanted to call it that, had not turned against his pack. That meant something to Scott. It meant a lot. He hadn't really had time to process any of that yet, but it was there, in his gut, the germ of the notion that maybe... _maybe_ he could trust himself a little more than he thought. Maybe he could extend himself the kind of latitude it was so easy to give others. Maybe he could start to forgive his wolf for what Kate had forced them both to do against their will.

All of these feelings and notions passed through him in the space of a heartbeat. He didn't have time to dwell on any of it though, not yet, because Nikte was still looking at him, studying him like an interesting curiosity. He felt a funny pressure in his chest, as if she was plucking at something inside him to see how it worked. Somehow, he understood that when he'd stood up to her earlier she'd seen in him whatever it was that Deaton called being a "true alpha" and that it intrigued her. Scott could feel her dangerous, child-like fascination flowing through him. He interested her. She wanted him. She wanted to _play_ with him, like a carless child might play with a captive butterfly. He had the distinct feeling that one moment she might lavish him with favor and attention and the next she might take him apart to see how he worked.

The harder she pressed in around him, the harder it became to breathe. He started feeling dizzy again, the intoxication of her presence mixing uneasily with his rising fear of her intentions and the terror of the nothingness growing around them. The void was almost everywhere now, a spreading darkness only slightly more terrifying then the one in which they already floated. Scott wasn't sure if he was more afraid that Nikte was going to just pop out and leave them here ... or that she planned to take him with her wherever she was going, as a curiosity, as her _plaything_.

He felt a curl of intention in her as he floated in her grasp. He could tell she was thinking of what she called the underworld and he got the impression that that was where she had decided to go. That was all well and fine for her, but he wanted no part of that. Scott desperately did not want to end up in yet another unfamiliar dimension, trapped as some kind of pet curiosity in a realm populated by fantastic beings like Nikte.

"It wouldn't be so bad," Nikte purred in his head, as if reading his thoughts, which she probably had been. "I would take good care of you, my little alpha wolf." She caressed him with an invisible touch, like the silky sensation of flower petals laced with the subtle scrape of claws gliding across his skin. Scott shuddered. His pulse pounded in his ears and his wolf writhed anxiously beneath the surface, both of them afraid. " _Maybe_ I'll even bring your little priest along with us and let you keep him, for a time," she told him.

 _For as long as he lasts,_ Scott could tell she meant. She didn't seem to think that would be very long. his heart clenched. _Stiles._ He looked across at where his friend floated, anguish worming through his chest.

"You think me cruel, little wolf," she purred. "When I would consider saving you from ending with this place without even making you ask." Her fingers sunk into him deeper, plucking at the strands of his being in a way that half pain, half pleasure and a hundred percent unsettling. "You aided me when you did not need to, so if you do not like my generosity, I will make you another offer." He had the impression that she was smiling at him, and not in a very nice manner. "I will let you name your own gift. You may ask me for anything that is in my power to give, _but,_ I will give you only _one_ boon, little wolf, good for _one_ person. So tell me, my little alpha wolf, what would you ask of me?"

Scott felt relief course through him. Maybe Nikte thought she was being coy, trying to force him to make a tough decision, but in reality, one wish was all he needed. Whether Nikte left him to die or took him for a pet, it didn't matter, he could face it if he knew he was going to that end alone.

"Send Stiles home," he said immediately. His wolf hummed in his chest in complete agreement, lending Scott a comforting, determined warmth as they steeled themselves for whatever lay ahead. "Safe and unharmed. Send him home."

Something like a ripple of mirth ran through Nikte's form, vibrating through the minds and bodies of both the boys who hung suspended within her embrace. Sound came rushing back to Scott as if someone had uncovered his ears. Like a trapped echo, he suddenly heard Stiles' voice bouncing around him, telling Nikte to send him home, along with his own words to much the same effect in reverse.

Stiles stared at Scott, wide-eyed in surprise and Scott stared back as they realized they had both been offered the same choice.

"So be it, little ones," Nikte murmured to them, sounding a little regretful but also maybe a little pleased. "It seems it is not destined for me to taste you or for us to run together. I think I shall not see you again ... or then again, I might. Who can say?" she added with the impression of a coy smile in her tone.

The next thing Scott knew, he was rushing upward through a shimmering sea of green, surrounded by the smell of ozone and vegetation. Like a swimmer breaking the surface he felt himself surge up and out and for a moment there was a confusing rush of broken stones and earth, as if they were underground again, in another collapsed chamber and then that too was gone and he was stumbling out into a dazzle of sunlight that was blindingly bright after having been so long in darkness.

Eyes burning, Scott blinked rapidly, shielding his eyes with his arm, the world a wash of over-exposed greens, grays and blues around him. He was aware of rough, solid ground beneath his feet and his lungs filled with a cacophony of scents and sounds that was so intense and unfamiliar it was overwhelming. Heat and humidity slapped into him like he'd stepped into a sauna.

"Holy shit," Stiles croaked at his elbow, coughing as if he really had just come out of the water. Still trying to adjust to standing rather than floating, Scott took a step forward and Stiles grabbed his elbow.

"Whoa, hang on, careful where you step. We are _so_ not in Kansas," Stiles warned, looking wide-eyed as he turned in place, looking around them. "Or California. No pyramids in either of those places, I'm pretty sure."

For a moment Scott couldn't figure out what in the world Stiles was talking about. Then his overwhelmed senses finally began to adjust and he realized that he and Stiles were standing on a broad, flat area of crumbled stone and mossy, grassy overgrowth at the top of an ancient stone pyramid, overlooking a waving, endless canopy of green treetops in the middle of some kind of tropical jungle.

"Holy shit," he mumbled.

Stiles nodded. "Exactly," he concurred.

The ground stone beneath them rumbled faintly, like something was shifting far below their feet. Maybe they were both just a _little_ bit jumpy in regards to feeling the ground move, because Scott and Stiles exchanged a single look before scrambling down the nearest, crumbling, stair-like side of the pyramid as fast as their limbs would carry them.

It was a relief to feel fully solid earth underfoot again when they reached the bottom, even though the pyramid had given no further indication of any kind of structural distress. Only once they were relatively safe did the exertion of the mad scramble down the pyramid catch up with Scott. He sat down abruptly on some broken piece of something that he couldn't be bothered to identify, the world a green and grey blur swimming airily before him. He was slowly healing, but still seriously injured and he felt incredibly weak. The shock and relief and confusion of what had just happened was a lot to deal with and he needed a moment.

Apparently Stiles did too, because his friend dropped down to his knees beside him, resting his head against Scott's side. "Yeah," Stiles mumbled, sounding about as dizzy and lightheaded as Scott felt. "Yeah, that's a good idea. Think ... the ... the mad pyramid crawl ... might not have been ... the best post-near-death-experience activity," he mumbled, breathing so hard he could barely get the words out.

Scott could feel Stiles trembling against him from exhaustion, exertion or both. He wondered for a moment at the odd position he'd chosen. Then he looked down and saw the red, bruised stripes across his friend's naked back and he knew why Stiles wasn't sitting. He cupped his hand lightly to Stiles' head, fingers carding gently through his friend's tangled brown mop of uncombed hair.

"We made it," he murmured with soft, disbelieving awe, exhaustion and relief making him feel giddy and maybe a little sick. He smiled, tipping his face up to the sun. "We made it."

"Yeah," Stiles murmured against his side. "Didn't see that one coming," he said wryly, but Scott could hear the smile in his voice. "The pyramid was also a bit of a surprise. I guess it's a good thing we specifically told Nikte we wanted each other home _safe._ Materializing in the middle of a caved-in pyramid chamber under a ton of rock would really have sucked."

Scott frowned, not following. "Huh?"

Stiles looked up at him like he didn't know why his friend was so dense sometimes. "When we first came out. Only saw it for a minute, but I'm pretty sure the gateway Nikte used to boot us out through was, like, in some collapsed room beneath where we landed. Nice of her to pop us up to somewhere where we could survive re-entry, that's all I'm saying."

"Oh," Scott blinked. "Yeah, that makes sense. Probably what the shaking was about then, things settling after us."

Stiles nodded and sat back on his heels, rubbing his face wearily. "Yeah, no more trips for that little portal-o-doom."

"Good," Scott said with a slight shudder. "You okay?" He fixed a worried gaze on Stiles, who looked ... well, he looked terrible.

o/o

"Awesome. I'm awesome," Stiles said with a trace of sarcasm as he pushed to his feet. "I'm standing next to a pyramid, surrounded by the unfamiliar ruins of some ancient city in the midst of some equally unfamiliar jungle, with no idea where we are or how to get out of here. So... yup, I'm fantastic."

He sighed, caught between being incredibly relieved to be in the real world again and incredibly annoyed that they had landed somewhere so obscure. He was sure they were here because this was where the other door to the labyrinth had been, and even if it had gone defunct with the destruction of the dimension it guarded, it must have been the easiest place for Nikte to boot them out. He was glad she'd done even that much, but their current situation was not terribly convenient.

His whole body hurt. He wanted to fall down and sleep for a year, preferably with a lot of pain killers involved and he was sure Scott felt about the same, but they weren't out of this yet. The hot, humid air was making the spinning in his head worse and he blinked, trying to keep his vision from blurring too badly. They couldn't stay here like this. They were going to dehydrate for one thing. He hadn't had any water in forever and was suddenly acutely aware of that fact.

Stiles scrubbed his hand across his face again, trying to gear up for what came next. They really should have taken a better look around from the top of the pyramid before beating their hasty retreat. It was probably the best vantage point to be had... but Stiles knew he didn't have it in him to make that climb again. Just walking across a level surface sounded like a monumental effort. Yet, somehow, they were going to have hike their way out of whatever forgotten corner of the world this was, find civilization and get help. Probably from people whose language he didn't speak. After what they'd been through so far, it shouldn't have seemed as overwhelming a prospect as it did, but he'd well and truly hit the wall by this point and he simply had no reserves left.

"I wonder where exactly we are," Scott murmured, looking around.

"I don't know." Stiles shook his head. "But if we escaped an inter-dimensional prison, a bunch of B movie treasure hunting goons AND a freaking magic Jaguar only to end up dying of malaria, or dehydration or something while lost in a jungle, I am going to lodge some _serious_ complaints."

Scott nodded as if he felt that was a perfectly fair plan. He pushed up to his feet, grimacing in pain. He wobbled unsteadily and caught himself. He was much too pale. Dark circles hung under his eyes and perspiration slicked his skin. "Right. Okay then," he said with determination, trying to be strong when he clearly had nothing left to give. "So we just have to ... figure out where we are and ... find people."

Stiles chuckled despite himself. "Yeah, pretty much, that's all. No biggie."

Scott grinned back at him. "Cakewalk," he agreed.

They shuffled wearily forward, out of the shadow of the pyramid, wincing again at the brightness and heat of the sun as it struck their weakened bodies like a physical force. They'd only gone a short distance when Scott's head pricked up and he looked around, as if he'd suddenly heard or smelled something.

Stiles barely noticed. The heat was wiping him out distressingly fast, he already wanted to take a break and they'd gone like, maybe twenty yards. Perspiration trickled unhelpfully down his face and between his shoulder blades, stinging fiercely in his wounds and frittering away moisture he could ill afford to lose. His throat felt like sandpaper and his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. Funny how he hadn't noticed how thirsty he was until it was suddenly abundantly clear that he wouldn't be getting any water for a painfully long time.

 _Keep going. He had to keep going._ Stiles continued stumbling forward, because if he didn't keep putting one foot in front of the other he was going to fall down and not get up again. He couldn't let that happen, not now, not when they were so close to getting out of this, to going home. The world was starting to swim, everything beginning to catch up with him at once and he couldn't let it. He couldn't afford that. _Keep going!_

"Right," he slurred, talking in an effort to keep his brain functioning. "Cake... walk, walk cake." He frowned, licking painfully dry lips and shaking his head like he could shake his words back into the right order. "No problem," he finally said instead. "We just stroll along through the jungle until we find some random people and say, _'hey there_... _'_ " he stopped, nearly running into Scott's back as his friend halted abruptly. Squinting and blinking against the still too bright light, Stiles looked past Scott, his eyes widening. "... Dad?"

Stiles blinked again, shaking his addled head and wondering if what he was seeing was a mirage or a hallucination. He wasn't sure if there was a difference, but decided that since he was without water in a wilderness area, it was probably a mirage. A very _detailed_ mirage. A very detailed mirage of his father, looking bruised and drawn beneath a canvas hat, his face a mask of stunned shock, raw emotion and fierce joy. A very detailed mirage of Mrs. McCall with very nearly the same expression, and Derek, and Lydia, and Malia, and Kira, and ... _Cora?_ There was also a bunch of other totally random people he'd never seen before, which made it really, really strange that they were showing up in his mirage, or hallucination, or whatever this was.

Then the mirage was running towards them and hugging him with strong, trembling arms that felt a lot like his dad's and Stiles was crumpling into them as the world blurred and his eyes burned and more moisture he probably shouldn't be wasting streaked down his cheeks. He was so tired and so homesick and he just couldn't be strong anymore, but it was okay because even as rough as he looked, the mirage was strong enough to take his weight; strong enough to him close and not let go.

Stiles must have been in a kind of shock, because he didn't know how long he stood like that. He had no idea how much time passed with him just leaning against his father and breathing in his familiar scent before he finally, really, truly understood that what he was seeing was real. He blinked, smiling hesitantly at his father through strangely watery eyes.

John cupped his son's face between his hands and kissed his forehead, still holding onto him like he'd never let go again. Beside them, Scott's mom was hugging him no less fiercely. Derek, Kira, Lydia, Malia and even Cora, whose presence was still puzzling the heck out of Stiles, were all crowding around them too. Everyone was talking and he didn't comprehend a word of what was being said, but he didn't care. The sounds, the excitement and the press of bodies was overwhelmingly, but that was okay, in fact it was _awesome_ because right now he wanted nothing more than to just touch them all at the same time, over and over because they were _here_ and they were _real._

 _They were real. This was real. His dad was_ alive _._ He and Scott _were alive. They were home. They were_ home _, and everything was going to be okay._

It was almost too much to take in. He didn't know how to handle feeling this happy. It felt so amazingly, unexpectedly, _unimaginably_ wonderful he wanted to laugh, or maybe cry some more. He settled for doing both at the same time, but that was okay, because pretty much everyone else was doing the exact same thing.

 **Epilogue**

Sunlight glinted down on the sparkling blue water in the swimming pool, and on the happy group of people splashing in the water and lounging around the deck behind Lydia's house.

Scott sat on the top of the ladder, trailing his feet in the cool water, watching the others. Kira, Malia, Liam and Mason were playing water volley ball a few yards away, laughing and diving about. Lydia was playing hostess, looking stunning as usual in her designer swimwear as she made sure there were plenty of refreshments out for them and that his mom, Stiles' dad and Derek had access to drinks of the adult variety. Parrish was supposed to stop by later too, after his shift. Cora had remained with her pack in Guatemala, but had promised to visit soon.

Scott felt incredibly relaxed, sitting here, surrounded by his family and friends. His wolf basked happily in the joyful, playful energy of their pack, content in their contentment, and Scott wholeheartedly agreed. It was so good to be home.

Laughter drew his attention to Mason and Liam, who had ended up in a splashing match with both of the girls shouting at them. It seemed the two younger boys had worked things out between themselves and had gone back to acting like friends again, much to Scott's approval.

As much as you may think the people you loved would be better off without you, the truth was that all of them were stronger together.

Scott looked over as Stiles slid down next to him, sitting on the edge of the pool and dangling his legs in the water. Stiles smelled like sunblock and the curly fries he was busily stuffing in his mouth. He smelled happy. Scott realized it had been a long time since Stiles had really smelled happy like that. Since before the Nemeton, maybe ... before the Nogitsune.

Scott's gaze slid across Stiles' exposed skin, reassured at seeing him whole and unscarred. They'd been home for a couple of weeks now. Scott had healed pretty quickly with a little time and adequate food and rest. It had taken longer for Stiles to lose all the physical reminders of their time in the labyrinth, but he too had mended.

They were both physically recovered from their ordeal now. Mentally would probably take longer. Scott knew by now the truth that there were some things you never truly forgot or got over. There were some memories, some traumas even, that became a part of you. Allison had taught him that. He'd never forget her, and he'd never forget Wilson and Jade either. He mourned them and he probably always would. He mourned those he hadn't known, too, the little girl, Anna and everyone else whose paths he hadn't even crossed. All of them would stay in his heart, but sorrow wasn't the only thing there because his heart was also filled with life and love. It was full of the people here, people he needed, who needed him and it was there, in them, that Scott found his balance. He would not let the shadow of grief take the sparkle out of the joy of living, because there was a lot of joy there to be had, if you were willing to look for it.

Scott smiled at Stiles. His friend was contentedly finishing off the heaping handful of crispy, salty potato curls as if he were trying to make up for missing weeks worth of food. Which, technically he supposed they had, even if for them it had only been a couple of days. It was still weird to think that they'd been missing long enough for the search for their remains to run on national news.

"Dude, you're gonna make yourself sick," Scott teased as Stiles crammed the remainder of the fries into his mouth all at once to finish them off. "That's like, what, your third helping? Slow down, man, I'm pretty sure Lydia ordered enough to go around."

"Exactly. I have a responsibility to finish them as quickly as possible before my dad starts getting tempted," Stiles said around a mouthful of food, only partially serious. "Besides," he swallowed and licked his fingers. "Haven't you heard? I've apparently been locked in a shipping container for weeks; I need to rebuild my strength." Stiles raised his eyebrows puckishly, obviously still getting a kick out of the cover story used to explain how he and Scott had mysteriously survived the explosion in which they were supposed to have died.

Since the official supposition was still that Gage and the others had been traffickers, it hadn't been too hard to sell the story that there had been a mistake and the boys simply hadn't been in the cave when it blew at all. The story went that they had instead been shipped away to somewhere in Central America, from which they later escaped. This was confirmed by a couple of vague official statements to that effect from "sources" within the FBI, courtesy of one rather annoyed but relieved Rafael McCall. They were kind of getting a lot of unwanted attention right now, but it would blow over eventually and Scott supposed he couldn't really blame anyone. People liked a story with a happy ending. He was kind of partial to them too.

Stiles squinted at him and cocked his head to the side. "What?"

Scott raised his eyebrows. " _What_ , what?"

"You. You're looking at me like I've got something on my face, or like there's something incredibly sappy going through that sunbaked brain of yours," Stiles teased him, flicking Scott's forehead with a finger.

Scott shrugged. "Just thinking that it's nice to see everybody having a good time, and hoping it lasts, I guess. It kind of feels like we're due, you know?"

"Ah," Stiles said sagely. "So, sappy, then. But yeah, it is and we are," he agreed, leaning back on his hands and kicking his feet a little in the water. "Not like _that's_ ever mattered much, but hey, make lemonade while the sun shines."

Scott chuckled. "I don't think that's how it goes." He studied Stiles, sobering a little. "Do you ever regret it?" he asked softly, impulsively. He knew he shouldn't spoil Stiles' good mood, but the question was out of him before he could think better of it.

Stiles looked at him quizzically. "Regret what? That our life closely resembles the mutant offspring of a badly written supernatural teen melodrama and a slasher flick? Or that I don't think it's physically possible to eat anymore curly fries and yet there are still some left? Because, yeah, I think I am kind of regretting that last one."

Scott grinned and shook his head, but his eyes stayed serious. "Regret not getting out when you had the chance," he said softly.

Stiles' eyes narrowed. "Out? Out of _what_? Out of my best friend's life? No. No regrets on that."

"That's not ... it's not that simple," Scott murmured, shaking his head, unsure how to express what he was trying to say. "I just... I guess I wish... I feel like you never really had a choice."

Stiles shifted, leaning one arm on the warm metal ladder railing between them so he could meet Scott's gaze fully. "It _is_ that simple," he said quietly. "And I _did_ have a choice. I probably had the most choice of anybody here. You're the one who didn't, Scott. You're the one who drew the short straw. Peter took your choice away from you, but you have done some pretty amazing things with those lemons. You've turned a curse into a gift, Scott, and there's no way I wouldn't want to be part of that."

Scott blinked in surprise. His chest felt tight and for a moment he didn't know what to say. Stiles was usually glib and sarcastic in casual conversation, the straightforward intensity in his words and his eyes right now was more than a little startling.

"Sometimes it still feels like a curse, though," he whispered, softly, very softly. His wolf shifted unhappily under his skin and he touched it gently, comfortingly. _It's not you, it's me. We have so much responsibility. I haven't even graduated high school yet, it's scary, okay? I worry about them, about the pack. I worry that following me will lead them to disaster and make their lives miserable. I mean, look at Stiles... look at what I have done to him, to his life._

"Really? Because I would think the superfast, super-healing, super-buff thing would start to get at least a _little_ cool at some point," Stiles joked, more in his usual manner again. "Trust me, having to get, like 28 stitches in your scalp isn't as fun as it sounds."

"You know what I mean," Scott mumbled.

Stiles grinned at him and shook his head. "Oh, right, because you're such a monster. Such a big, bad, scary werewolf that all _you_ wanted to do when you wolfed out was cuddle and get your ears scratched. Don't _ever_ think I'm letting you forget that." He smirked.

Scott dipped his head with an embarrassed, abashed smile and rubbed the back of his neck. "That _wasn't_ all I wanted to do. Stiles..."

"I know," Stiles cut him off quietly. "I know, and it's ... it's _okay._ " He seemed to struggle a little, like he didn't know how to articulate what he meant. "I mean, obviously, killing rampages = bad, so yeah, let's not go crazy there, but..." he gestured frustrated, like he could will Scott to understand him. "You know?"

Weirdly, Scott did kind of know. One of the benefits, perhaps, of knowing someone so well. He got that Stiles was trying to tell him he knew Scott's animal instincts could be savage, but that he didn't think they were inherently bad and that while Scott certainly needed to control and guide them, he didn't need to hate them. Scott was starting to think that maybe, _maybe_ he might be right. After the things Nikte had said, after going through that labyrinth and seeing what an actual, physical effect their connection to the Nemeton could have, he was rethinking the root of his recent issues... no pun intended.

He rubbed his chest absently, and Stiles seemed to know what he was thinking. "Yeah, I feel it too," he murmured. "It kind of helps to know it's not actually me, going crazy dark side. I can deal with a stupid tree. Should have realized, really, I mean, Deaton _did_ warn us." Stiles shrugged.

That was true, he had. Scott guessed they both had simply not fully understood what that meant. They'd thought when Stiles was able to read again and Scott stopped losing control that it was over, somehow, but what they'd done seemed to have much more lasting and permanent effects. Scott's gaze drifted over to where his mom was sitting with Stiles' dad. She was smiling, both of them laughing at some shared joke or amusing story. Scott smiled, knowing that he'd do it all again. He could deal with some possessive old magic tree any day, over the alternative.

As Stiles had said, even just understanding, consciously, what the issue was and separating the sensation of the Nemeton's darkness from himself and his own psyche did actually make things easier. He could deal with a foreign darkness that needed to be watched, it was better than thinking it was _him._ He hadn't realized until now, that Stiles had felt that same thing. He'd thought it was his wolf, Stiles had ... had what? Simply thought it was _himself_? That _he_ was some kind of evil force? That was so ridiculous, Scott could have laughed, only it wasn't funny, because he wondered if that was part of why Stiles ... why Stiles had stopped wanting to live.

"Stiles, I ... I remember what happened. In that room with you, when I lost it. I wasn't really there, but somehow, I remember. Well, some of it, anyway," he whispered the words like a confession and an apology, because they were both.

Stiles' smile remained determinedly steady. "Yeah? Some of it, like the part where you didn't kill me even though all that magic hoodoo was kicking the crap out of you? Or some of it, like the part where you were licking all over my face like a giant puppy dog, because I honestly could do without you remembering that bit, man."

"Uh... yeah, no, I didn't remember that, thanks for the mental image." Scott smiled again, despite himself. "No, I... I remember what you said, when I was ready to kill you. You were going to _let_ me, Stiles." Scott didn't mean it as a recrimination, but Stiles must have read something like that in his soft tone, because his friend pulled back slightly, shifting uncomfortably and rubbing first his nose and then his ear like he did when he was agitated.

" _Let_ is a pretty strong word. Human, werewolf," he gestured between himself and Scott, his voice acquiring a faint edge. "Not like there was a whole hell of a lot I could do about it, Scotty."

Scott's eyes narrowed, not buying that excuse for a moment. "Bullshit," he said quietly. "Since when has that _ever_ stopped you? You went after the twins with a frigging _baseball bat,_ man. You don't just roll over for a werewolf, or anyone else, you never have."

Stiles rubbed his nose with the back of his hand again, an uncomfortable tell Scott had seen a million times. "So what? You're _mad_ I didn't fight back enough, maybe try to bludgeon you with a blunt object? Because I can probably rectify that situation now," he added sarcastically.

Scott shook his head, frustrated that this conversation was going so far sideways from what he'd intended. "No, I'm not saying that," he tried to clarify. "What you did saved us both, Stiles. I was so messed up, I don't know if I would have recognized you in time, if you'd fought and acted like prey or a threat. You did the right thing, I'm not ... I ..." he ran his hand through his hair, breath leaving him in a frustrated rush as he struggled to put the tangle of emotion inside him into words that made sense.

"I'm not _mad,_ " he said finally. "I'm _scared_." His gaze when it met Stiles' was hesitant and deeply vulnerable. "You ... you were really going to just give your life to me, man and it _scares_ me, because you always do that. You're always stepping into the gasoline with me when I'm ready to light it all on fire, and you told me you didn't want to destroy me, but don't you understand? I'm scared _I'm_ destroying _you,_ Stiles." The words grew hoarse as Scott's throat tightened around them. "You wouldn't be in any of this mess if it wasn't for me. If I weren't a werewolf, you'd be safe. You'd be happy. You'd still want to live."

There. He hadn't meant to let all that out, but he had. He'd said it. The thing that had been hurting him more and more with every suicidal risk he watched Stiles take; every time there was a gun to his head and he just didn't care. Stiles had always run into danger, not away from it, Scott knew that that was simply a part of his friend's nature, but ever since Stiles was possessed, there had been a change in him. There was a callousness in the disregard he held for his own safety now, as if Stiles somehow believed that Allison dying had invalidated his right to live, and Scott couldn't take it anymore.

Stiles blinked at Scott, as if finally standing the real issue. "What? No, Scott, this isn't about me not wanting to live, okay? Trust me, I _want_ to live. Kind of been fighting pretty hard to stay that way recently, in case you hadn't noticed." He grinned, but Scott stayed serious, having none of it. Stiles sighed.

"Okay, yeah, maybe I kind of ... kind of lost the script for a little while," he admitted, looking down and picking at the hem of his swim trunks. "It was never about wanting to die or anything stupid like that. I guess I just ... sort of felt like I was doing more harm than good, you know? Messing things up for everybody."

That was exactly what Scott had just started to suspect. He could maybe understand where it came from now, although the notion remained an absolute absurdity. "Stiles, no, you..."

Stiles looked up, flashing him a wan, but strangely contented smile. He shook his head, cutting Scott off. "No, I know. I know _you_ don't feel that way, but it was never about how anyone else felt. It wasn't just the thing with the Nemeton. My head's been kind of messed up, okay? Having a thousand year old demon mucking about up there will do that." He made a face. "Everything that's happened, I guess it kind of helped shake some stuff clear for me. Which... is really pretty screwed up, I guess, if I think about it," he scratched his neck with a frown and then shrugged. "But why not? Everything about our lives is a little screwed up. Doesn't mean it's _all_ bad."

Scott sensed no lie in his friend's words and he was relieved to see the very faintest, hesitant glimmer of a light in Stiles' eyes that felt like it had been missing for a while now. Maybe it _was_ screwed up, but if that had somehow come out of the whole nightmare they'd just been through, then Scott considered it pain well spent.

"I guess that's what I was trying to say before," Stiles continued, absently fiddling with the draw string on his swim trunks. "We can't play the what-if game, Scott. Maybe things would be better if Peter had kept his pervy fangs to himself, and we were still just two clueless losers finishing out senior year, oblivious of everything. But then again, maybe it would be worse. Maybe a lot more people would have died and we'd have been a lot more helpless. It doesn't always feel like it, but we _are_ doing some good, sometimes. You're a _great_ werewolf, Scott, and I'm not unhappy. I mean, hell..." he looked around, his lips quirking wryly. "Two years ago, did you ever think we'd be hanging out at a private party at Lydia Martin's house?" Stiles' gaze skimmed over the people around them, all in various modes of enjoying themselves, and when he looked back to Scott, there really was glimmer of contentment in his eyes.

Scott realized Stiles could feel it too, the peace of being surrounded by friends, by pack. By these precious people who had all cared deeply enough to work themselves ragged and even run around the world in an effort to save them. As much pain as the past few years had brought, it had brought a lot of good, too.

"Would I go back in time and change things if I could?" Stiles shrugged. "Maybe some days, but not today. Not if it meant trading in all the good stuff too. And none of that has anything to do with what I said to you in that room, anyway." Stiles leaned against the railing between them again, as if he really wanted Scott to understand what he was saying. "Because werewolf or human, whatever, it doesn't matter. I will always step into the gasoline with you, Scott, because that's where I _want_ to be."

Again, Scott felt his throat constricting and his chest aching in a way that was painful and yet really, really nice. Stiles was being incredibly open and honest with him and it was a little weird and yet very much exactly what Scott needed. They often talked around issues, or made their peace through humor, and that was great, but there was something about Stiles being willing to expose himself like this without his usual protective layers of sarcasm and wit that touched Scott deeply. Stiles placed so much faith in him, and as much as that was scary sometimes, it also encouraged him, because Stiles was smart and Scott trusted his opinions.

Stiles smiled, soft and teasing. "Oh my God, are you going to cry?" He looked both amused and adorably uncertain about what to do. "Are you okay?"

Scott grinned and wiped his eyes on his arm. "Yeah, I'm good. I'm really good," he promised. "You know it goes both ways, right? You know I'd do the same, if you ever actually needed me." He smiled ruefully. _Instead of me always needing you._

"Ever actually..." Stiles laughed like that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "Okay, well, next time a magic, homicidal jungle cat wants to have a Stiles snack, _maybe_ I'll call you. You're such an idiot, Scotty," he said with a fond tone that made it sound like an endearment.

"Well it's a good thing I've got you, then, huh?" Scott retorted, surreptitiously wiping his nose.

"Damn straight," Stiles agreed, swinging his legs in the water. "Nobody ever said life would be easy, right? But hey..." He reached across the railing, flicking a bug off Scott's ear and cuffing the side of his head affectionately. "Sometimes it's not _so_ bad, right?"

"Yeah," Scott murmured. "Sometimes."

"Oh my God," Lydia's teasing voice from behind them made both boys turn to look at her. She'd taken off her cover-up and clearly wanted to use the ladder they were occupying to get into the water. "Are you two going to make out, or get in the pool? Go cuddle somewhere else."

They both laughed. Scott slid easily off the ladder into the pool and Stiles followed. They treaded water while Lydia climbed in beside them.

"Oh, you want to know about _cuddling,_ " Stiles said in an entirely too pleased tone that instantly told Scott he wasn't going to like what came next. "Let me tell you about the _king_ of cuddling..."

"Oh no, you don't," Scott warned, swimming towards his friend. "Stiles..."

"Oh come on, this is relevant," Stiles teased, dancing nimbly away from him. "Don't you think maybe your pack should be forewarned about what happens if you wolf out? You know, so no one takes it wrong if they suddenly have a lap full of giant were-puppy licking all over them... w-aack!"

Scott cut Stiles off by dunking him under the water. Stiles retaliated by kicking his legs out from under him and taking Scott down with him. They tumbled up against Liam and Malia, taking them down too, and in a matter of moments the happy chaos spread, devolving into a giant pool brawl that involved everyone trying to dunk everyone else for no particular reason except that they could.

o/o

Safe on their lounge chairs beside the pool, John and Melissa watched the shrieking, splashing young people with amusement.

The jostling, laughing, writhing mass of bodies nearly fetched up hard against the closest wall and Derek made the mistake of walking over to them. Smiling wryly, the older werewolf shook his head at the teenagers. "Hey, hey," he warned. "Watch the edge or you could –"

Scott's hand slid out of the tangle. Pushing himself up on the edge of the pool and grinning devilishly, he snagged Derek's ankle and pulled, toppled him into the water with them. Derek landed with a mighty splash amid riotous laughter and squeals of those trying to get out of the way. Then, of course, he had to retaliate, which led to much more splashing and screaming and happy chaos.

"Where _do_ they get their energy?" Melissa pondered aloud, shaking her head.

"Good genes," John replied with a little smirk. "I'm going with good genes."

Melissa returned his smile and raised the cup she was holding. "I'll drink to that."

They sealed their agreement with a toast, the soft _thup_ of plastic cups meeting lost amid the laughter and shrieks of all their kids, both biological and adopted, getting to be kids for a while.

It was a lovely sound.

 **THE END**

* * *

 _A/N: I'm not sure anyone really cares, but as an interesting side note, a lot of the lore I used for this story is real, although of course I molded and interpreted it to fit my purposes. The Mayans really did have a number of legends about Jaguar gods and transformers. The Water Lily Jaguar is also a real figure depicted in a number of ancient artworks, although no specific stories exist about her (or him) that I've been able to dig up, and all the legends given about her in this story are pure fiction. :)_ _I also made up the fictional location of La Colina, but based it on real, similar sites like El Mirador._


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